Quantitative Evaluation of Firms Offering Remote Sensing Services for Geological Exploration

Lindsey V. Mannes, Jr.

In a totally non-regulated industry, such as remote sensing, literally any individual or firm can make extravagant claims and offer "expert" services with impunity. Most such "expert remote sensing services" consist of inadequate and inappropriate lineament analyses or image classifications that are near-worthless, rather than products with real exploration value, such as the generation of improved geological maps or the delineation of geochemical and geobotanical anomalies. There is no legal, nor even a self-policing mechanism, to assure the competence of practitioners in the industry--which is why so many "remote sensing specialists" with little or no geological training offer geological exploration services. In this "Caveat Emptor" ("let the buyer beware") environment, exploration firms must carefully weigh the level of competence, quality of products and services, reputation, ethics, claims of efficacy, guarantees, and so forth, of all firms under consideration, before letting any contract. Unfortunately, the capabilities of remote sensing firms being inherently unequal, the conventional approach of retaining these services solely on the basis of lowest bid is an excellent method to assure the depletion of precious budgetary resources with little or no financial return. The simple and practical quantitative method presented for evaluating remote sensing firms presented here gives the explorationist an impartial mechanism for ensuring the very highest quality professional services. The quantitative methodology is easily modified for the unique circumst nces of individual firms; furthermore, this method can be adapted for the evaluation of other exploration services as well. In this difficult economic environment, neither explorationists nor the many quality service firms can afford the luxury of inadvertently subsidizing charlatanry.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91040©1987 AAPG Rocky Mountain Section Meeting, Boise, Idaho, September 13-16, 1987.