Automated rock joint trace mapping using a supervised learning model trained on synthetic data generated by parametric modelling

Abstract

This paper presents a geology-driven machine learning method for automated rock joint trace mapping from images. The approach combines geological modelling, synthetic data generation, and supervised image segmentation to address limited real data and class imbalance. First, discrete fracture network models are used to generate synthetic jointed rock images at field-relevant scales via parametric modelling, preserving joint persistence, connectivity, and node-type distributions. Second, segmentation models are trained using mixed training and pretraining followed by fine-tuning on real images. The method is tested in box and slope domains using several real datasets. The results show that synthetic data can support supervised joint trace detection when real data are scarce. Mixed training performs well when real labels are consistent (e.g. box-domain), while fine-tuning is more robust when labels are noisy (e.g. slope-domain where labels can be biased, incomplete, and inconsistent). Fully zero-shot prediction from synthetic model remains limited, but useful generalisation is achieved by fine-tuning with a small number of real data. Qualitative analysis shows clearer and more geologically meaningful joint traces than indicated by quantitative metrics alone. The proposed method supports reliable joint mapping and provides a basis for further work on domain adaptation and evaluation.