Breakthrough technologies for mineral exploration

• DOI: 10.1007/s13563-022-00317-3
• Publication Date: 2022-05-19T06:02:33Z
• Authors: Kazuya Okada
• Keywords: Review; 01 natural sciences; 0105 earth and related environmental sciences

1. Significant improvement in economic efficiency, namely: labor-saving, automated or unmanned operation, e.g. unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based exploration and automatic spectroscopic scanning of drill cores; higher accessing capability, e.g. improvement of various airborne exploration techniques including airborne EM, AGG, and especially airborne IP; higher work efficiency and productivity, e.g. automatic data processing by neural networks/deep learning; and lower cost to implement, e.g. less expensive platforms such as UAVs. 2. To obtain information that is really needed for exploration, specifically: IP effect of sulfide minerals associated with mineralization, i.e. practical spectral IP (SIP); geophysical characterization of the deep underground, e.g. enhancement of superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID)-based time-domain electromagnetic (TDEM); and removal of effects of the surface layer, e.g. very conductive deeply-weathered overburden and younger volcanics rich in magnetic minerals. 3. To obtain information that could not be obtained by the conventional methods, specifically: distribution of endmember minerals related to mineralization, i.e. hyperspectral mapping with high spatial resolution.