High Tech Secret
Cyber-Panning For Gold Saves Hundreds Of Man-Years
The next step is to "digitize" the NASA photos - feed them into a computer for analysis. That's not very expensive either. It requires a very sophisticated software routine, to be sure. But a Sun SPARC station is all the hardware you need.
Here's how a small exploration company typically handles the task:
They put one technician in front of the screen. The technician creates a simulated 12-square mile grid. And presto! The earth yields up its secrets.
Suddenly, you can identify collapsed calderas - ancient volcanoes. You can home in on fault structures ... or spot the collision between different fault structures. You can find anomalous mounds that represent possible places where volcanic deposits have intruded upon other mineral strata.
Just as importantly, you can "sterilize" vast tracts of land... identifying vast unpromising areas... places where, 50 years ago, they might have wasted time and money.
So, in one very inexpensive operation, you've just multiplied your chances for success a thousandfold. This is information that would have required millions of dollars by older techniques.
It's also much, much quicker than it was in the old days. The entire process I've described can be done by one person, in less than a day. Hundreds of man-years are saved.
$5 per square mile - and one man-day on a workstation. Sound like a good deal so far?
High Tech Secret
Looking inside Mountains with A "Geological MR191Only when our high-tech explorers are certain they're onto something do they have to travel to the actual site. But even when they arrive in Chile - or Uzbekistan, or Zambia - there's another modern trick that speeds up the hunt and cuts their costs even further.
A geologist flies over the area in a fixed-wing aircraft ... dragging a magnetic instrument. Trolling for "goldfish." The instrument measures conductivity, resistivity and magnetism of the ground. More information that helps the explorers target mineral deposits with even greater precision.
Then they overlay the new magnetic data over the existing satellite data. And before long they have a very good idea of where the "hot" places might be in every square mile of the chosen area. Only then does the exploration firm need to decide to invest in on-the-ground sampling.
Again, the financial savings from this "geological MRI" are enormous. And all the facts about the new technology - the speed, the accuracy, the savings - keep leading to an overwhelming truth that everyone who wants to profit from this new mineral rush must understand...
Because of all the new space-age exploration techniques, exploration is no longer a capital-intensive business. It's knowledge-intensive.
It requires plenty of skill... and the speed to outrace your competition... but it does not require the brute force of one of the giant mining companies.
As a result, many of the most successful exploration companies out there tend to have a total market-capitalization (share price x shares outstanding) of 30 million dollars or less.
That's very small. And it's also a beautiful scenario for investors.
First, the share prices for promising new exploration companies tend to be very low, typically $10 or less. So it doesn't take much money to buy a large position.
Second, when one of these companies hits, the value of the company - and the share price - doesn't just climb, it goes to the moon. You're not talking about a 20% gain, but 200%, even 2000%.
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