After the spectacular successes of the 1960's and 1970's, the mineral exploration business is at a crossroads, facing uncertain t: imes in the decades ahead. This situation requires a re-thinking of the philosophy guiding mineral exploration if it is to emulate its recent performance. The ma: i. n argument of a previous volume titled "Designing Opt: lmal Strategies for Mineral Exploration," published in 1985 by Plenum Publishing Corporation of New York, is that a possible answer to the challenge facing mineral explorationists lies in the philosophy of opt: irn1zation. This new approach should help exploration staff make the best achievable use of the sophisticated and costly technology which is presently available for the detection of ore deposits. The main emphasis of the present volume is placed on the mathematical and computational aspects of the opt: irn1zation of mineral exploration. The seven chapters making up the ma: i. n body of the book are devoted to the description and application of various types of computerized geomathematical models which underpin the optimization of the mineral exploration sequence. The topics covered include: (a) the opt: lmal selection of ore deposit types and regions of search, as well as prospecting areas within the regions (Chapters 2, 3, 4, 6), (b) the designing of airborne and ground field programs for the opt: lmal coverage of prospecting areas (Chapters 2, 3, 4), (c) delineation and evaluation of exploration targets within prospecting areas by means of opt: irn1zed models (Chapter 5).

Few knowledgeable people would deny that the field of mineral exploration is facing some difficult times in the foreseeable future. Among the woes, we can cite a worldwide economic uneasiness reflected by sluggish and at times widely fluctuating metal prices, global financial uncertainties, and relentless pressures on costs despite a substantial slowing down of the rate of inflation. Furthermore, management is forced to tum to more sophisticated and expensive technologies and to look farther afield to more remote regions, as the better quality and more easily accessible ore deposits have now been revealed. This rather gloomy outlook should persuade explorationists to cast about for a new philosophy with which to guide mineral exploration through the challenging decades ahead. Once already, in the early 1960s, a call for change had been heard (Ref. 30 in Chapter 1), when it became obvious that the prospecting methods of yesteryear, so successful in the past, could not keep up with the rapidly growing demand for minerals of the postwar period. The answer, a massive introduction of sophisticated geophysical and geochemical technologies backed by new geo logical models, proved spectacularly successful throughout the 1960s and the 1970s. But for both economic and technological reasons, the brisk pace of the last two decades has considerably slowed down in the early 1980s, as if a new threshold has been reached."