Reading the tree leaves

As much of the easily accessible gold has been found, prospectors and mining companies have had to dig deeper and venture farther into more extreme and remote environments to find economically viable deposits.

Mineral exploration companies spent nearly US$10 billion during 2019 in the search for nonferrous metals, with over 40% of global mineral exploration budgets spent on gold, according to figures from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Some industry experts believe that “peak gold” will happen soon — or may already have been reached — and so the cost of finding new gold deposits will only increase.

With exploration becoming more challenging, companies need to look for alternative methods in the search for new deposits.

“Most of the low-lying fruit, so to speak, has already been discovered,” says Colin Rose, executive chairman of Marmota (ASX: MEU). “In today’s world, the most prospective ground is where deposits lie beneath the surface, sometimes deep below. But the problem is: how to get to this gold without the expense of having to drill everywhere?”

Marmota, a mining exploration company in southern Australia, turned to biogeochemical prospecting techniques to find gold.

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