Drones usher in a new generation of exploration geophysics

The world is mind bogglingly vast and laden with unyielding terrain in which valuable natural resources may be hiding in any nook or cranny. For centuries, geophysical methods have been used to prospect for natural resources that lie below the Earth’s surface. Dating back to at least 1640 in Sweden, magnetic mapping was being used to locate buried iron-ore deposits.

The leading edge of geophysics has since that time been in continual pursuit of improvements in resolution, depth of investigation, and ease of execution in

exploration properties, which often comprise the aforementioned unyielding terrains.

With the advent of UAVs (unmanned

aerial vehicles), commonly known as drones, a leap forward in geophysical prospecting has begun. Drone-borne magnetic surveys are quickly becoming a bread and butter tool to mineral explorers, offering higher resolution data and unparalleled mapping quality. embraced this new wave of geophysics and have flown over 30,000 line-

“The industry’s response has been fantastic, keeping us continually booked up for months in advance, including many repeat customers,” said Card.

kilometres of UAV magnetics in locations from the Yukon, NWT, all across Canada, Greenland, and Nevada over the last two years.

The drone borne approach to geophysics eliminates the need to cut lines and results in improved precision in data collection. Flying lower than traditional aircraft, coherent geophysical maps over sizeable areas can be produced with superior resolution, providing a great advantage in exploring for mineral deposits, which can often sit within finer-scale structural features. The combination of precision and accuracy provided by these surveys results in superior drill-targeting, shortening the path to discovery. As the team mantra at EarthEx states, “discovery is in the details”.

Offering a system which can fly lower than any other system on the market, with full-time centimetre scale (RTK) precision, as well as tackling more difficult terrains, EarthEx are able to produce the highest resolution magnetic maps available, revealing great geological detail in places where it was previously not possible. This, coupled with a strong in-house technical team of geophysicists, EarthEx provide their clients with a suite of geophysical products, which play central roles in their exploration campaigns. said Daniel Card, president and chief geophysicist of EarthEx. “Magnetic data has always been a bread-and-butter tool for explorers, and we are proud to be producing the highest-quality magnetic data on the market.”

He adds that the success that their

clients have had, especially in structural definition using this data, has been very exciting and has led to repeated success in discovery and delineation of many commodities, especially structurally controlled deposits like gold, silver and lithium, to name a few.

“The industry’s response has been fantastic, keeping us continually booked up for months in advance, including many repeat customers,” said Card. “Thank you to our clients, partners, and the exploration community for your continual support and encouragement, for our role in this exciting new era in exploration.”

In addition to magnetic surveys, EarthEx are actively using unmanned aircraft to support exploration with tools like LiDAR and orthophotography, as well as other high-resolution technologies, such as borehole geophysics. Other new technologies, such as UAV-borne electromagnetics, are expected to be available in the near-term of what is a very bright future for mineral explorers.

With six geophysical crews in operation, EarthEx are currently booking for spring campaigns across Canada and winter campaigns in the United States. 7