What was the inspiration behind founding Expert Geophysics and your flagship MobileMT system?

Myself, along with Peter Kuzmin, who is one of the best engineers in the industry, decided that there was an opportunity for us to build a company that offers airborne geophysical surveys with advanced electromagnetic systems. I knew from previous experience that the technology was lacking a number of features, so when I talked to Peter, he laid out a clear vision on how to improve the technology.

Ultimately, we came up with our MobileMT system, which possess several advantages over existing airborne electromagnetic technologies. Compared to active sources airborne electromagnetic technologies, MobileMT has much greater depth of investigation. That is very important because most of the near surface deposits have been discovered by now, and many companies are looking for deeper targets. Of the airborne electromagnetic technologies, MobileMT is the deepest penetrating. We are measuring three components of magnetic variations in the air, and we have X, Y and Z components, which means that we can recover the geology of any shape. 

Can you provide a brief overview of the suite of products Expert Geophysics offers?

We have three primary technologies that we have launched. The first system is the MobileMT system, which is our flagship system. That system exploits passive electromagnetic fields arising from lightning events and storm activity that cause variations in the earth's magnetic field. This is what we are measuring. Our MobileMTm system, is a further development of that technology, and that is built to identify discrete targets and strong structural features with a focus on the relatively near surface depth range. The final system that we are flying is the mTEM system, which is a time domain system. That is designed for very detailed near surface investigation. What differentiates this system is its ability to reject industrial voids and electromagnetic destruction. By the end of 2022, Expert Geophysics will be offering clients the full range of electromagnetic services.

Does MobileMT work across a variety of geological settings?

This technology works with a wide range of minerals because of the wide resistivity range we are able to detect. The technology has proven to work well with orogenic and epithermal deposits, kimberlites, and uranium deposits in the Athabasca basin. Here we have flown surveys to pick up not only conductive units in the basement but the zone of alterations in the sandstone. In Ontario, we recently completed a survey for lithium pegmatites. We flew our MobileMTm which has a smaller sensor, and it has a magnetic gradiometer.

The biggest thing that we want to emphasize is that we have used the technology for many different commodities. The fact that the system is versatile and applicable in such a wide range of topographic, geographic and geologic conditions means that if an electromagnetic survey is suitable for your mining and exploration objectives, the MobileMT system can most likely deliver the results you are looking for.

Is MobileMT still able to perform effectively in areas with existing infrastructure?

The infrastructure creates noise in any kind of electromagnetic data. However, we have several examples where we flew close to existing infrastructure and collected good data. It is an issue, but we can deal with this particularly because our system better handles any infrastructure noise because of our wide range of frequencies. Usually the noise is not on all frequencies. That means we can still connect useful data in looking at alternative frequencies.  

To what lengths does Expert Geophysics go to translate the raw data it collects into a format that is easily interpreted by customers? 

Our clients are looking for the geological answers, not just geophysical data. At Expert Geophysics we emphasize this part of our product offering because we do not only deliver the data, we also deliver the interpretation while working closely with geologists to help them better understand what the data means. We have expertise in both geophysics and geology, so we advise our clients to provide us with the geological information they have on the property we are surveying. We can then interpret the data, and provide them with the geological information they require.