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Quasi-terrestrial UAV-based Geophysical Methods: Efficiency and Role in Geological Prospecting
- Publisher: European Association of Geoscientists & Engineers
- Source: Conference Proceedings, Engineering and Mining Geophysics 2018, Apr 2018, Volume 2018, p.1 - 11
Abstract
Unmanned airborne geophysical technologies can make the geological survey of areas with complex landscape and morphological conditions more efficient. The subject of this paper is magnetic and gamma-ray survey technologies. With the help of terrain pre-modeling and a special flight mission planning software, our developed methods and technical solutions can make a unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operate at low and constant elevation above the ground throughout the survey, thus ensuring high quality accurate of the airborne geophysical data. In this paper, we describe the survey techniques and present the results of unmanned magnetic- and gamma-radiometric surveys performed over the prospective for uranium and gold ores mountainous areas in the Eastern Siberia (Russia). The data obtained by unmanned methods is compared to the results of previous conventional terrestrial and airborne geophysical surveys. Accurate low-elevation draped surveys using unmanned systems are demonstrated to be equivalent to the traditional surveys in terms of informative value in a complex landscape and morphological conditions, and significantly increase work productivity and economic efficiency as compared to terrestrial geophysical surveys. The authors believe that these results demonstrate the possibility of future replacing ground surveys by “quasi-terrestrial” geophysical methods in most cases.