Mineral exploration is the process of finding ore (commercially viable concentrations of minerals) to mine. Mineral exploration is a much more intensive, organized and professional form of mineral prospecting and, though it frequently uses the services of prospecting, the process of mineral exploration on the whole is much more involved.
As a result of advances in technology, mineral exploration has changed dramatically from the days when the lone prospector packed a pick and a rabbit’s foot into a canoe and headed into the bush for a season’s work. Mineral exploration and mining is presently a business that calls for highly skilled professionals to work as a team, using powerful, often computerized, mining and exploratory equipment. The exploration team can have prospectors, geologists, geophysicists and geochemists (and their assistants) included, whose skills complement each other as they lookfor new mines.
Prospectors even now play an importantpart in generating showings (evidence of local mineralization), which are later optioned and explored by mining companies. To find these showings, prospectors depend on geological maps, government reports, evaluation files and aerial photographs.
When Investing in mineral exploration, the common-sense rules of investing are as certain in mineral exploration speculation as they are for investment in any other industry. If a magic formula existed to identify theminingventures that would prove to be spectacular successes, every speculator would have retired on his riches long ago. An earlier author closed a discussion of investing with the words, “above all else, investigate before you invest.” It was true then and it is true even today.
