FEATURED ARTICLE: Exploration and Sampling

The need for innovation in exploration is greater than ever in these difficult economic times. John Chadwick examines the quest for ever deeper deposits and diverse targets in challenging environments.

For early-stage exploration, Gedex says its high definition airborne gravity gradiometry data (HD-AGG™) “is the most significant new technology capable of transforming resource discovery to be developed in over 20 years. The HD-AGG system measures minute changes in the strength and direction of the Earth’s gravity field, to performance levels better than 1Eotvos (E)/√Hz, from a fixed wing aircraft.”

The cost effective imaging derived from this data maps changes in the subsurface geology, ranging from the near surface features to depths in the orders of kilometres. This new exploration  data can be used either alone or quantitatively
integrated with other geophysical imaging technologies (seismic, electromagnetics, magnetics) as well as integrated with legacy data to detect buried resources that current generations of technology cannot effectively image. Integration with HD-AGG data also improves other technologies, enabling a new generation of risk mitigation best practices to evolve. As a result, Gedex clients can rely on faster discoveries with lower project time, cost and risk.

Gedex adds that it “delivers immense value by reducing risk of exploration, fast-tracking best prospects and ultimately accelerating discovery success rates by providing mass and density information at a quality that no other geophysical system can. We can transform resource discovery and development by illuminating previously undetectable economic deposits.”