The links below provide information on the most common methods ofmineral exploration in Ireland and across the world. Mineral exploration is theprocess of searching for evidence of any mineralisation hosted in thesurrounding rocks. The general principle works by extracting pieces ofgeological information fromseveral places, and extrapolatingthisover the larger area to develop a geologicalpicture.Exploration works in stages of increasing sophistication, withcheap, cruder methods implemented at the start, and if the resultantinformation iseconomically interesting, this warrants the next, moreadvanced (and expensive) techniques. However,it is very rare tofindsufficiently enriched ore bodies, and so most exploration campaignsstop after the first/couple of stages.
Exploration pyramid, showing how after the initial desk study research,each subsequent stage becomes less and less likely. To put into numericcontext: In Ireland, despite thousands of prospecting licences, only 3 modernexamples of mines have opened since the 1960s.
