J, you sort out the formatting if you have any interest... for your Confirmation Bias file
Nine rules for exploration success fromthe world’s best mine finder
Michael Allan McCrae | October 28, 2015 | 4:02 pm Base MetalsPrecious MetalsCopperGold
Simply put, you just have to be out ofthe office, in the field and drilling holes if you want to bemaking discoveries says legendary explorationist and geologist, DaveLowell, in his book IntrepidExplorer – The Autobiography of the World’s Best Mine Finder.
Lowell—this past century’s most successful mining explorationist having discovered an unprecedented seventeen ore bodies including the world’s largest copper mine—distilled his years of wisdom into nine rules on making discoveries. Reprint of the nine rules was generously permitted by Sentinel Peak,The University of Arizona Press.
Ihave a number of exploration rules that I follow:
3.Mines are nowalmost always found by drilling holes, so if no part of the budget is spent ondrilling there is almost no chance of success. (Pierina was the rareexception.)
4.Exploration is acost/benefit business. Expensive high-precision core drilling is often usedwhen low-precision low-cost rotary drilling would suffice. In the AtacamaProject we spent $3 million on wide-spaced rotary drill holes. If we had usedcore holes our budget would have run out when less that half the holes weredrilled including those that found the Escondida and Zaldivar orebodies. Thesame logic applies to all other exploration costs.
5.High-tech devicesand geophysical surveys are very rarely of value in mine discovery. Thereshould be an almost metaphysical communication between the rocks and thesuccessful explorationist in which the rocks talk to the explorationist. If heturns part of this job of geological mapping over to a high-tech gadget, he maylook good to uniformed management, but he is less likely to find a mine.
6.It is important to have a goodunderstanding of the target he is looking for, including understanding somemining engineering, metallurgy, mine finance, and mineral economics. He is notlooking for a scientific curiosity; he is looking for a mass of rock which canbe made into a mine. I believe my mining engineering and mine production workhas been very important in my exploration success.
7.Mineral exploration, likeinvesting new blockbuster drugs, has a very low probability of success. Onlyone out of three hundred to fine hundred attractive targets become a mine. Youhave to accept the fact that you usually be wrong. I’d guess that only one outof thirty well-trained exploration geologists ever actually find a mine.However, if an explorer has found one mine, statistically he is likely findothers.
8.Finding mines is a high-riskbusiness. In addition to the geological risk are the political risk, the metalprice risk, the mine financing risk and the timid, incompetent management risk.Success is the summation of a list of well-evaluated risks.
9.My last facto, which you don’tfind in training manuals or classroom or mining articles, is the freedom toplan you own exploration project without interference of the company rules ortradition or interference by supervisors who are as good as prospector as you.
