It Had To Happen...

There's now a Google Earth map tool that shows where gold has been found before, which'll aid exploration efforts. One of the standard tricks in the exploration business is to stake or buy claims beside ones that contain either a gold mine, or a sizable resource that looks destined for a mine, in the hope that the ore body on the producer/successful explorer's property will extend beyond their claim bed.

Over at British Columbia's Mineral Titles Online, it's possible to 'stake' a claim electronically now, although you have to get a Free Miner Certificate from the Ministry of Mines in person before they'll let you. The Province of Ontario has documents that pertain to earlier exploration work on Ontario claims scanned electronically; so does B.C. to a lesser extent.

Geeky this forecast may be, but the day of convergence is not far off. Someday, perhaps someday soon, it'll be possible to do basic pre-exploration research and register a property of claims right from a computer in the basement...