Ore bodies are created, not found There is a widespread belief amongst people outside our profession that all ore bodies that have yet to be found already exist. They are imagined as out there, ready-made by nature, waiting for some lucky prospector or mining company to stumble […]
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Is there a sense in which a geological map can be described as a representation of fact? Can a map define “ground truth?” A map is a virtual reality representation of the world in two dimensions. A geological map is a human artefact constructed according to […]
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The most fundamental feature of any map is its scale. The scale of a map is the ratio of a length of a unit line on the map to the length that that line represents in the real world. The ratio is expressed as a fraction that […]
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Here’s a geological mystery. The impossible diamond drill hole - a drill hole drilled where no hole could possibly be drilled. I can offer no really satisfactory explanation, although there must of course be one. Perhaps readers can think of one for themselves. A few years ago I was […]
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The metals mining industry offers geologists two distinct career paths – the exploration geologist and the mining geologist. Between these roles there is an overlap of required knowledge and skills, but the job requirements are different and the personality which makes a good exploration geologist seldom makes […]
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Air photographs (along with other similar remote sensed products such as satellite and radar imagery) provide both a mapping base on which to record field observations and an integrated view of landscape on which map-scale patterns of lithology and structure can be directly observed or interpreted. Where […]
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The concept of the anomaly is one of the most basic ideas in exploration geology. It is understood in these terms - it is a truism to say that significant metal ore bodies are unusual: another word for unusual is anomalous.: therefore, if mineral explorers (explorationists) identify anomalous […]
Read more →Explorers for minerals work with maps. The scale of the map controls the detail of the information that can be shown. With geological, geophysical or geochemical information, State Surveys , typically, present their data at regional scales ranging from 1:250,000 down to 1:50,000 : these aim to […]
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The camera and the interrogator How odd it is that anyone should not see that all observations must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service. Charles Darwin, 1870 Speak to exploration geologists and you will find two views about what a […]
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Vergences and fractals Field geologists have long known that the style and relationships of structures seen in a hand specimen, outcrop or drill core can mimic the style and relationships of much larger structures that formed during the same deformation but occur at the scale of a geological […]
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