Resumen de Hole in the ground: Is the lack of exploration storing up trouble for the future?

Industrial Minerals

• There have been a growing number of warnings that the pullback in mining exploration spending over the past decade could lead to a shortage of mines and a fall in industry standards over the next 10 years. “Lack of investment in the exploration space is nothing new,” says Oliver Bayley, a Johannesburg, South Africa-based senior exploration geologist at SRK Exploration. “Since the downturn in 2003, exploration spends overall have been reducing – apart from a few hot commodities, such as lithium. “In many cases, additional mapping and items such as ground geophysics or geochemistry prior to drilling is more than repaid in reducing drill meters or ensuring the best possible results are received,” he says.Reinterpreting data based on new understanding of geology and deposit models, such as mineral systems approach – one that considers all the geological processes that control the formation and preservation of mineral deposit and can potentially lead to an increase in resource size – is another way juniors can boost the attractiveness of their project to investors, at relatively low cost.