advanced technology

OGEASIA JANUARY 28 – FEBRUARY 28, 201588

If there are other methods available for exploration that can enhance the explorers mission at less cost, why are

we not incorporating this as part of our standard procedures for pre-exploration surveys? Why are we sending people and high cost equipment into the unknown?

This is what the modern day explorer is doing. Why is there a high percentage of dry holes being drilled? There has to be a reason.

In Indonesia, it is claimed that they have a certain reserve of various resources, but are these resource locations known exactly? In the writer’s opinion, if they were known, why is so much costly and time consuming exploration being carried out? Why do many exploration programs come up blank? Why do license owners complain they have lost millions of dollars and they have found nothing? It’s because the methods of exploration being used today are not suitable for advanced exploration, the methods used today have not really advanced over the past sixty years or more when seismic became the main tool for exploration and real geology took a back seat.

Is it easy to detect sources under the earth’s surface from the ground? When we want to see further than we can by standing on the ground, what do we do? We climb to a higher point

in order that we can see beyond the ground level horizon.

Therefore, it stands to reason that airborne or satellite eyes in the sky can see further, faster and cover more area in a shorter amount of time than a person can on a camel or any other mode of transport that you want to imagine.

Airborne topographic, magnetic and gravity surveys have become widely accepted. In the case of air magnetics and gravity observations, they can detect anomalies, which are low value, high-risk anomalies.

Ever since the first satellite was launched on Oct. 4, 1957, which was Sputnik 1 from the Tyuratam spaceport in the Kazakh Republic, the human race has been able to see more of the earth’s surface than was previously possible.

When the first commercial color television transmission was broadcast on June 25, 1951 by CBS, people started to believe that what they had been watching in black and white must be true, as it was now being shown in color. Unfortunately, very few people could watch it on their black-and-white televisions at that time. This is a similar scenario to what we have at this time for advanced technology for exploration.

The world we live in today is very advanced technically compared to when the above happened, after all, where would we be without our

mobile phones, Facebook, Whatsapp, the internet and others?

Technology has advanced, the art of exploration has not kept pace and advanced along the lines that many other things in our daily life’s have, why is this?

Since the first satellites were launched, observations have been carried out over the earth’s surface, how do we know about such things as the ozone layer, or the destruction of our forests or the discovery of unknown features?

Ground stations have been measuring ozone levels for most of the last century until today. In 1924, the Dobson spectrophotometer was the earliest instrument used to measure ozone; modern versions continue to provide data. Extremely low ozone levels were first observed from Faraday Base, Antarctica. They provide long-term data of both total column ozone and ozone distribution with altitude, but only over a small area. Instruments that are commonly used to measure atmospheric ozone from the ground (not surface ozone) are the Dobson spectrophotometer and Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR).

Satellites measure ozone over the entire globe every day, providing comprehensive data. In orbit, satellites are capable of observing the atmosphere in all types of weather, and over the most remote regions on

OPINION

Advanced technology for exploration is the future


OGEASIA JANUARY 28 – FEBRUARY 28, 2015 89

Earth. They are capable of measuring total ozone levels, ozone profiles, and elements of atmospheric chemistry. In the mid-1980s wide-ranging ozone depletion over the Antarctic was first recognized from satellite data.

Observing information from space gives people on the ground a far better picture of what is happening on or with the earth than can be observed from the earth’s surface.

Since the launch of the first Landsat Satellite in 1972, imaging sensor technology has undergone rapid advancements that have enabled explorers to collect increasingly more useful data. When the technology was in its primitive stages, geologists used the sensors to collect simple data, such as surface features, and used this data to provide clues to a potential mineral deposit beneath the surface. This surface data was also used as a tool in mapping. Now, satellites fitted with “more advanced” sensors use the spectral properties of materials (what wavelengths of materials they absorb/reflect) to identify the materials without having to view them “in person.” Sensors mounted on aircraft and/or satellites can collect this spectral data, and these sensors use infrared, near infrared, thermal infrared and short-wave technology to collect the data.

What do satellites do? They listen, observe, record, and transmit.

Depending on the job that they have to do, we put satellites into different orbits, some orbit the sun, most orbit the earth. Two very useful types of orbits are a Geostationary orbit (GEO) and a Low Earth orbit (LEO).

George BarberMarketing Partner Terra Energy & Resource Technologies Plc.

Geostationary Orbit (GEO)These satellites are in a circular

orbit 35,786 kilometres above the Earth’s equator and follow the direction of the Earth’s rotation. An object in such an orbit has an orbital period equal to the Earth’s rotational period and appears motionless to ground observers. They are used for telecommunication, television transmission and for navigation.

Low Earth Orbit (LEO)A satellite is a LEO when it

orbits somewhere between 160 and 2,000 Km above the Earth’s surface.

Satellites in LEO speed along at 27,359 kilometres per hour. They can circle Earth in about 90 minutes (Dependant on height). They are ideal for making observations of the Earth’s resources!

Elevation imagesCollection of the data is relatively

easy, various methods of collecting information in the form of images and acoustic noise has been carried out for many years, although the full benefits of satellite observations of the Earth are only realized when the essential infrastructure, such



OPINION

as models, computing facilities, ground networks, and trained personnel, are in place. Without these items in place, the information gathered is worthless.

So why, when we come to satellite derived data for exploration do people call this “Black Box Magic”? What is Black Box Magic?

In the writer’s humble opinion, nearly everything we use today could be put into the Black Box Magic bucket. For sure, I do not understand a modern car engine, where in my younger days, I could strip down a petrol engine and put it back together with a few parts missing and it would run. I also do not fully understand how a modern television works; when it was a value set, I did and could even repair it. Some mobile phones, you cannot replace anything;

you have to take it to the dealer to change the battery or buy a new phone, its probably cheaper.

There is nothing about advanced technology for exploration that is “Black Box Magic”. Some of these programs have been developed over many, many years by highly skilled and professional people. Therefore anyone who calls their work “Black Box Magic” is being unreasonable. Credit should be given to these companies and people that had the foresight and patience to understand that the world is not the same from the ground as it is from space. They understand what they have done, we should try to understand and not ridicule this.

The world has advanced tremendously; it is arguable that not all advances are for the better,

although if they are used in the right context, they can be useful.

Now let’s us move on to the title, Advanced Technology for Exploration is the Future.

Where are the majority of hydrocarbons, minerals, and geothermal resources to be found? The answer to that is clear, beneath the earth’s surface mainly.

Is it easy to detect these under the earth’s surface from the ground? The answer to this is no. If it was, we would be doing it. I would expect that investors, concession owners, contractors, governments would be happy to use advanced technologies that save time and money, although I do expect that drilling company’s would prefer to drill 10 holes instead of one and seismic company’s would prefer to run lines of seismic in areas that are not prospective.

Changes on the earth’s surface Why is there reluctance by certain

people to use advanced technology for exploration? Why is it hard to convince people of the importance of pre-exploration information? After all, advanced technology enhances what the geologist does, it takes nothing away from anyone, it enhances, and it allows a company to explore in a high prospect area and not in a high-risk area.

As a hydrographic surveyor by background, I would not mobilise an offshore survey team if I did not know what existing data was available; this is called a “Desk Study” so useful, it saves time and it saves money.

This also applies to land surveys and river surveys, both of these I have done in abundance. If the data were available to carry out a desk study of



the surrounding area we would use it to enhance our knowledge before mobilization of expensive equipment and people. The use of modern equipment allows us to collect more detailed information than the early explorers were able to collect, due to the instruments available at the time, not due to the capabilities of the people! The early explorers were the heroes; they did not have the information and technology that is available to us today.

This leaves us with one question. Why are our modern day explorers not using the technology that is available to them?

One of the main reasons behind this is that geology as a field wants (and maybe needs) to prove its right of existence, with the occasional fear that the work of geologists is being taken over by something’s that are unknown to them and

believing that their very existence is in question and would make highly educated professionals obsolete. This statement is totally untrue. Anything that can help an exploration company, anything that can help an investor to save time and money has to be used. Anything that can help the non-destruction of the environment on land or in the sea has to be used in this modern era.

Another and more justified fear is that the world around us is making mistakes in obtaining, analyzing and interpreting seismic data, and trained geologists do not point out these mistakes, (not because they hide something, but because they do not have the tools) which leads to, guess work, wrongly placed drilling rigs, and way too much seismic work being carried out in areas that do not contain prospective or economical reserves.

In conclusion, the latest technology has to be used and incorporated as part of any exploration company’s operating procedures before committing to explore an area that very little is known about, or committing to bid for a license area. Why take the risk?

If the money being spent on exploration was your own money, would you not want to take every precaution possible to protect your money? I know the answer to that question, as I am sure you all know the answer.

Open Minds, Receptive Attitudes: Above all, it is important to be willing to think in new ways, propose new combinations, and to challenge the status quo.

Mr. George BarberEmail: [email protected]

HP: +62 812 111 0118

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