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Future Exploration
Presenter
Dan Wood, AO
SEG Thayer Lecture Series
Abstract
The role of mineral exploration is to create wealth by discovering ore deposits for mining. Unfortunately, the 11-fold increase in exploration expenditure between 2002 and 2012 seems to have resulted in wealth being destroyed, with flow-on effect to investor confidence. Historically, exploration has mostly targeted deposits for mining by open pit; but the falling discovery rate in recent years suggests that many, if not most, of the “more obvious” near-surface deposits have been discovered, and those remaining will be much more difficult to find.
As a result, future exploration will need to target either near-surface deposits for open pit mining where evidence of their presence is much “less obvious”, or deposits that are located below open-pit mining depth which will have to be mined using an underground method. Where the deeper deposit is large and of lower grade, such as in a porphyry Cu deposit, for example, mining using a caving method is the only presently available way of recovering ore; but most exploration geologists have a limited understanding of how to explore for deposits suited to this form of mining.
Whereas this may seem a hurdle to discovery, the knowledge limitation is easily overcome and is far outweighed by the opening up of a new ‘Greenfield’ exploration terrane, below 300 m depth in the Earth’s crust, down to 2,000 m.
The role of mineral exploration is to create wealth by discovering ore deposits for mining. Unfortunately, the 11-fold increase in exploration expenditure between 2002 and 2012 seems to have resulted in wealth being destroyed, with flow-on effect to investor confidence. Historically, exploration has mostly targeted deposits for mining by open pit; but the falling discovery rate in recent years suggests that many, if not most, of the “more obvious” near-surface deposits have been discovered, and those remaining will be much more difficult to find.