Gold Prospecting and Mineral Deposit Exploration
The objective of the mining investigation is that of providing to the world market the prime mineral or energetic minerals. The prospecting decisions of one or another mineral, in one place or another is in function of the economic and political context around the world and can be accomplished by the state or private organisms. In the first case the search of the prime materials is done by a public organism. In the second case there only intervenes the concept of revenues or utilities and the eventual search decisions are bound to the fluctuations of the world wide market. Another case can be given such as in the developing countries where prospecting can be trusted to a public organism in another country of another country, to a private society or international organism.
Why to search for minerals
The increase of the needs is due to:
- An increase in the world population
- An increase in the needs of the population
This implies an increase in production or a relaunching of the investigations. However, the evolution of technology in addition creates new needs. For example, the appearance and start up of the motors of explosion and fuel derived from petroleum, has made necessary the creation of more resistant alloys that are possible with the increase of new mineral prospecting, such as antimony, chrome, nickel, cadmium, and the prospecting of petroleum. All of this implies the cycle of mineral economy. In the following we will give an example of the first mineral used by man, which is quartzite or flint. In origin, a prehistoric man, who was more observant than others, accidentally discovered the origins of the properties of quartzite and the advantages as far as the wood and the hardened clay in heat which were more hardness, a minimum amount of wearing down, sharp cutting edges etc.
After this:
- The first artisanal exploitation of mineral came about. Usage gave superiority over those that had wooden arms.
- The commerce in change; with the increase of the demand the price increases.
- The protection of the deposit that brings about the envy of others: the owner protects his good and needs to do this by hand in order to do extraction and other thongs for the distribution feed. In this way we can see an embryo of a capitalist society show up (chief, worker, currency of change or buy, nations of a lot of work). Then competition shows up through “industrial spying” somebody obtains some flint and “prospects” the place. Another deposit is found, the prices become reduced, everything has its own variety of silica.
