Thanks Guys!
Jim,
I view THIS as THE single most important technological development for prospecting in our lifetime!
Every prospector's DREAM come true!
In the dream...
We climb into a Helicopter. Somebody else paid for the Helicopter. Somebody else filled 'er up with fuel. Somebody else is paying the pilot. Somebody else has organized and paid the cost of mobilization. Somebody else organized the survey of over 8000 line miles of Alaska Tundra. Someone else paid for the room full of Geo-scientists that planned the survey.
The Metal Detector;
The metal detector has NO equal. It was designed by a company that knows the technology, has paid electronic design engineers. Has paid the mechanical design engineers and paid for the cost of components and the cost of fabrication, has done the testing and calibration.
The metal detector has FIVE different electromagnetic sensor systems that operate according the known principles of the very BEST off the shelf metal detectors on the market today. One sensor operates at a low frequency for DEEP penetration into the earth. A second sensor operates for INTERMEDIATE Depth. A third sensor operates to provide SHALLOW depth measurements. Two other sensors are employed to capture data from other intermediate depths with different orientations. ALL of the detector/sensor systems operate simultaneously while the Helicopter is in flight. The system is CALIBRATED to known standards and is ZERO'ed in air at sufficient height above the ground before and after every flight. The sensor Instrumentation includes a sensitive MAGNETOMETER. A second REFERENCE magnetometer is positioned on a point on the ground within or close to the survey area to continually measure the DIURNAL variation of the earth's magnetic field. This is done to CORRECT the readings made in flight.
The system uses a RADAR ALTIMETER to correct for the amount of "AIR" between the sensor system and the signal response from the EARTH below. A precision DIFFERENTIAL GPS is included to provide accurate LOCATION of every measurement in real time. To do this a GPS REFERENCE receiver is positioned on the ground also within or in close proximity to the survey area at a precisely surveyed location. The reference GPS receiver records variation in the GPS location "solution" so that on-board GPS location data can be corrected for the best possible accuracy.
High precision DATA from ALL of the sensor systems are acquired and stored in a high speed Digital Signal Processor (DSP) computer acquisition system at TEN SAMPLES PER SECOND. When moving at 90 miles per hour, the speed over the ground is 120 feet per second. Data is collected at approximately every 12 FEET.
Wait... There's more!
Stay tuned...
- Geowizard
