Satellite Imagery and Gold Exploration

The record-high price of gold, coupled with the increase in demand for the metal, as well as shrinking identified reserves is putting the pressure on explorers to discover new deposits. At the same time, gold explorers are faced with the challenge of locating a metal that is extremely rare, and hard to find in economically viable quantities. To increase their odds in finding gold, explorers are relying on the rapidly advancing field of remote sensing.

Since the launch of the first Landsat satellite in 1972, imaging sensor technology has undergone rapid advancements that have enabled explorers to collect increasingly more useful data. When the technology was in its primitive stages, geologists used the sensors to collect simple data, such as surface features, and used this data to provide clues to a potential mineral deposit beneath the surface. This surface data was also used as a tool in mapping. Now, satellites fitted with “more advanced” sensors use the spectral properties of materials (what wavelengths of materials they absorb/reflect) to identify the materials without having to view them “in person.” This spectral data can be collected by sensors mounted on aircraft and/or satellites, and these sensors use infrared, near infrared, thermal infrared and short-wave technology to collect the data. (...)

By Leia Michele Toovey- Exclusive to Gold Investing News
Mon, Jun 27, 2011 

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