Abstract
THIS subject has recently received a good deal of technical and non-technical publicity, both in Great Britain and abroad. Resulting from the extensive use of aeroplanes during the War for reconnaissance and survey purposes, aircraft operations afterwards gained a firm foothold in the technique of exploration, particularly in inaccessible territory. Developments were rapid and the applications to map-making were perfected and commercialised. The incidence of aircraft as an important factor in geological studies is of more recent date and primarily owes its recognition to the important work carried out in North and South America in connexion with exploration for petroleum, including the survey of pipe-line tracks. Both in the realm of petroleum technology and mining geology, aerial reconnaissance and photography have proved valuable as time- and money-saving factors. The literature on this aspect of the subject has grown extensively during the last few years, and probably one of the most complete accounts of the subject was given by Mr. Donald Gill before the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy recently, when he dealt with “Aerial Survey in Relation to Economic Geology”. This paper contains a useful bibliography,which has been reproduced with additions by Mr. H. Hemming, who discussed the commercial aspects of the subject at a meeting of the Institution of Petroleum Technologists on January 10. Mr. Hemming showed clearly that the main value attached to the use of aircraft in exploratory work is for obtaining rapidly information of technical value, and for transporting personnel or material from one place to another. He gave a very succinct account, not only of what has already been accomplished in this direction, but also of the potentialities of further development of air survey.
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Aircraft in Relation to Petroleum Technology. Nature 131, 160 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/131160b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/131160b0