Talon Metals Corp said the company and its partner Fleet Space Technologies, Australia's leading space company, have agreed to pilot Fleet’s ExoSphere rapid mineral exploration solutions at Talon’s exploration projects in Minnesota and Michigan.
The company said Fleet’s new “earth scanning” technology could increase drilling accuracy and decrease land disturbance in exploration for high-grade nickel deposits.
Fleet’s ExoSphere technology scans the ground using an advanced seismic tomography technique, called Ambient Noise Tomography, where highly transportable ‘Geode’ devices listen to faint background vibrations from natural and man-made sources.
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The data is then processed rapidly and transmitted from anywhere in the world through Fleet’s constellation of low earth orbit satellites which were recently launched by SpaceX.
According to Talon, the data can deliver a full 3D visualization of the subsurface, specifically what resources may be below ground, down to 2 kilometres depth in as little as four days.
Talon CEO Henri von Rooyen said the company was excited to work with Fleet to pilot their impressive advanced seismic tomography approach to mineral discovery and pair it with Talon's in-house exploration teams’ unique approach to finding more high-grade nickel in the United States.
“Fleet's technology has the potential to deliver two tantalizing results for geologists like our team of proven 'nickel hunters': speed and accuracy,” von Rooyen said.
“Increased accuracy means less disturbance of the earth as compared to conventional exploration practices. Speed means a faster path to discovering the metallic minerals like nickel that society needs for the energy transition."
Fleet chief exploration officer and co-founder Matt Pearson added: "Our satellite-enabled earth sub-scanning technology will play a vital role in securing the US mineral supply chain quickly, sustainably and less expensively.”
Talon Metals is a TSX-listed base metals company in a joint venture with Rio Tinto on the high-grade Tamarack nickel-copper-cobalt project located in central Minnesota.
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