Most early-stage exploration money is spent finding out where the mineralization isn't. Crews prospect, sample and map across large land packages, and only a small part of that ground is ever worth drilling.
A satellite survey flips that order. You start with a map of the whole property, ranked by how closely each part matches the deposit you're looking for. Then you send people to the best ground first.
## 1. See the whole property at once
A field crew covers a few square kilometres a day. A satellite survey covers your entire claim, and the district around it, in one pass.
Single surveys have covered more than 11,000 km². Our Chile gold survey covered 7,000 km² around one small mine.
## 2. Map minerals, not just pictures
We don't just look at satellite photos. ASTER's thermal (LWIR) and shortwave (SWIR) bands record how different minerals absorb and give off energy.
We unmix that signal into abundance maps for 16 endmember minerals per satellite tile as standard. ASTER thermal maps have 90 m pixels, and Sentinel-2 shortwave maps 10 m, which suits regional and property-scale targeting.
## 3. Learn from what you already know
Our fingerprint models are trained on your own known mineralization: a showing, a vein or a drill intercept. They then find more ground with the same signature.
- Ontario: six known outcrops led to new graphite and vermiculite zones, confirmed by trenching.
- Chile: a working mine's veins led to two new veins and a 325 g/t gold bulk sample.
## 4. See through forest, sand and time
- Vegetation and cloud: filtering removes them, and we choose leaf-free or low-cover scenes. Our Ontario targets were under mature forest.
- Cover: at Winu we outlined a copper–gold system beneath more than 50 m of sand.
- History: the ASTER archive goes back to 2000 and the Sentinel-2 archive to 2015, so we can see ground before roads, mining or snow got in the way.
## 5. Make field budgets go further
A satellite survey needs no one on the ground, no permits for access and no wait for the field season. It gives you a ranked target list, GIS files and an interpretation report your geologists can use straight away.
Our surveys are also designed to support government work and licence assessment filings, so the work can help keep claims in good standing. (Tell us your jurisdiction and we'll confirm what's accepted.)
## When it works best
- You're acquiring or screening claims and need to know which ground to keep.
- You have a large, under-explored land package and a limited field budget.
- You have one or more known showings you want to find more of.
- The ground is covered by forest, overburden or sand.
## Read more
- [Our case studies](/case-studies)
- [Mineral targeting: what you receive](/solutions#minerals)
- [Common questions](/solutions#faq)
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Want to see what a survey would show on your ground? Send us your claim boundary and a geologist will come back with a scope and fixed quote. [Request a survey](/request-a-survey).