Method of drilling vertical and horizontal pathways to mine for solid natural resources

A method of drilling vertical and horizontal pathways to mine for solid natural resources comprising steps of:

• (A) providing a drill bit, at least one reamer, a first plugging material, a second plugging material and a measurement device, wherein the measurement device comprises an electromagnetic (EM) scanning device, a computing device and a sidewall coring tool;
• (B) drilling a testing wellbore to a specific vertical depth with the drill bit, wherein a surrounding lateral area of the testing wellbore includes at least one desired mining section, and wherein the at least one desired mining section is associated with a corresponding vertical depth;
• mapping a compositional makeup of the surrounding lateral area by probing the testing well bore at a series of vertical depths with the measurement device by activating the EM scanning device at each vertical depth, receiving sensing data with the EM scanning device at each vertical depth, excavating a core sample at each vertical depth with the sidewall coring tool, generating compositional data at each vertical depth by compositionally analyzing the core sample at each vertical depth and compiling the sensing data and the compositional data at each vertical depth into the compositional makeup of the surrounding lateral area with the computing device during step (B);
• identifying the at least one desired mining section within the compositional makeup of the surrounding lateral area during step (B), wherein the corresponding vertical depth of the at least one desired mining section is one depth within the series of vertical depths;
• (C) creating a new bottom end for the testing wellbore by filling the testing wellbore up to an offset distance from the corresponding vertical depth with the first plugging material;
• (D) drilling a curved access hole from the new bottom end into the at least one desired mining section with the drill bit;
• (E) further drilling a plurality of horizontal access holes from the curved access hole into the at least one desired mining section with the drill bit;
• (F) enlarging each of the plurality of horizontal access holes with the at least one reamer;
• (G) excavating cuttings from the at least one desired mining section through the plurality of horizontal access holes during step (E) and/or step (F);
• (H) filling the plurality of horizontal access holes with the second plugging material;
• and
• (I) reiterating step (D) through step (H) in order to create a plurality of lateral holes, wherein each lateral hole is the curved access hole and the plurality of horizontal access holes in step (D) through step (G).