DefinePK

Abstract

The rapid urbanization and industrialization are spurring a rising demand for building materials, base metals, and industrial minerals. This causes the need of increasing exploration activities of greenfield mineral deposit. While, in contrary mining industry in recent years discover fewer greenfield deposit, due to the high costs of traditional exploration (drilling and trenching) methods and low success rate in discovery of the mineable deposit. Whereas, the substantial growth in demand for mineral commodities increased the need for more new discoveries. To this end, innovations in exploration strategies are required. This paper attempts and overview of available techniques (drilling, geochemical and geophysical) for evaluation of mineral deposits, focusing on fundamental principles, and the advantages and disadvantages of each technique. The paper also presents a critical comparison of these exploration techniques, considering equipment cost, time required for data collection and interpretation and also the efficiency of deposit assessment of each method. The major advantages and disadvantages of the techniques presented is discussed in text and as well as tabulated. Finally, the future challenges in exploration are discussed and recommendations for alternative techniques is mooted.