The history of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada is very much the history of progress in mineral exploration technology. Geophysics, remote sensing and geochemistry have all seen most of their development over roughly the same period that the PDAC has existed. The association was formed a few years after geophysicist Hans Lundberg made the discovery of the Oriental orebody at Buchans, Newfoundland, using magnetic and electrical survey methods. In those days, many mining men saw geophysical techniques as "black boxes" and gave the science little credence. In an entertaining history of mining geophysics he wrote for the Canadian Exploration Geophysical Society, geophysicist Harry Seigel identified 1953 as the year the Canadian mining industry finally accepted geophysical surveying as a way to find mines, following the discovery of the Bathurst and Heath Steele massive sulphide deposits. That watershed had been preceded by years when geophysics was regarded with anything from puzzlement to outright suspicion, thanks in part to over-enthusiastic selling jobs from some geophysicists.
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