Geophysical surveying is an important part of the mineral exploration process, and is thus an extremely useful methodology for mineral exploration companies. Airborne and ground geophysical surveys are essential to identify and locate different mineral commodities in a specific area. Governmental agencies also use geophysical surveys to identify and promote potential zones of interest within their territory, which may contain valuable mineral deposits, hydrocarbons and even groundwater.

 

Mineral exploration companies operate on exploration budgets, so need to utilize the most cost efficient methods of exploration.  Airborne and ground geophysical surveys are exactly that, providing both cost and time benefits for the exploration project by utilizing their valuable datasets.  

 

 

Airborne geophysical surveys can be coordinated and executed to quickly and effectively measure geophysical properties of the subsurface.  This data can then be interpreted to assist with determining geological structures within the project area, helping to identify areas of economic interest.  Airborne geophysical survey technologies that are used on exploration projects include:

Airborne geophysical surveys offers the advantage of being able to safely and efficiently survey remote and rugged terrains.  Ground-based exploration methods are simply unable to compete economically with airborne geophysical survey methods in terms of the large areas that can be quickly covered while acquiring geophysical data.

 

Mineral exploration companies typically survey their entire properties using airborne geophysics to highlight areas where they need to focus more expensive ground methods such as geochemical studies, ground geophysics, and drilling.  Also of equal importance, the airborne geophysical survey data can tell them where they don't need to spend on further ground studies.