Industry / 05

Lithium exploration on EV-race timelines.

Remote characterization of lithium brines, sedimentary hosts, and hard-rock deposits. We return grade indicators, concentration estimates, and depth maps — in weeks, not the multi-year exploration cycles that define the industry.

Request a Lithium Survey How It Works
15,000 ft
Mapping depth
3
Deposit types supported
0
Permits for survey
22+
Countries deployed
Lithium salt flats and brine evaporation pools
The problem

Lithium exploration is slow, expensive, and sparse.

A conventional lithium exploration program — whether for a salar, a sedimentary basin, or a hard-rock pegmatite — depends on a grid of exploration holes, each costing hundreds of thousands of dollars and months of scheduling.

In the salars, grade and concentration vary laterally across a single evaporite basin. In hard rock, pegmatite lenses are narrow and unpredictable. In every case, you spend capital on holes that confirm what isn't there.

Inside Earth replaces the "drill to learn" model with a "screen, then drill" model. We map the subsurface remotely, and your drill program then confirms what our signatures already indicated.

What we deliver

Grade, depth, and extent — without a rig.

Every lithium engagement is calibrated to the deposit type — brine, sedimentary, or hard-rock — with NMR signatures tuned to the lithium-bearing minerals or fluid chemistries specific to the target.

Brine concentration maps

For salar plays: lithium-brine concentration indicators across the basin, vertical extent of the productive aquifer, and brine chemistry signatures.

Pegmatite & hard-rock

For hard-rock plays: spodumene and lepidolite signatures with depth and thickness estimation for narrow pegmatite lenses.

Sedimentary hosts

For clay and sedimentary lithium: lateral extent and thickness mapping to inform resource calculation and pit-design studies.

Use cases

Where lithium developers deploy us.

Greenfield target generation

Screen claim portfolios or country-level datasets to find the salars and pegmatite fields worth committing exploration dollars to.

Drill-program optimization

Use our concentration maps to pick drill-hole locations — reduce holes-to-resource-declaration by a material factor.

Resource M&A diligence

Independently validate a target's subsurface story — prior to lodging a bid or executing a transaction.

ESG & community licensing

In politically and ecologically sensitive salars, a zero-disturbance survey is increasingly the only way to move before drilling permits.

By the numbers

Lithium economics, moved.

15,000 ft
Max depth
3
Deposit types
<6 wks
Typical turnaround
0
Environmental impact
Related industries

Also serving critical minerals.

Mining

Mining & minerals

Base metals, precious metals, and industrial minerals — grade, tonnage, and depth mapping.

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Energy

Conventional oil & gas

Onshore conventional plays — de-risk exploration before any seismic program mobilizes.

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Offshore

Offshore oil & gas

Remote subsurface mapping through water — up to 15,000 ft of combined water column and rock.

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FAQ

Questions engineers and exploration VPs ask us.

Short answers. If something here touches your project, ask us the specific version under NDA.

Does your method work on salar brines, sedimentary hosts, and hard-rock pegmatites?

Yes — all three. For brine salars, we map indicated lithium concentration and the vertical extent of the productive aquifer. For sedimentary hosts, we map lateral extent and thickness of clay/volcanic units. For hard-rock (spodumene/lepidolite pegmatites), we map lens thickness and depth. Each deposit type uses a dedicated signature library tuned to that geochemistry.

Can you actually estimate grade remotely, or just presence/absence?

We return indicated grade — relative, not absolute — calibrated to any available ground-truth in the region. For brine projects we deliver indicative Li concentration ranges (e.g., 200–500 mg/L vs 500–1000 mg/L); for hard-rock we deliver relative ore-grade classification. Absolute assay certification still requires drill sampling and lab analysis.

How does your lithium survey complement a Direct Lithium Extraction (DLE) pilot program?

DLE pilots need to be sited over the highest-concentration brine to achieve meaningful throughput. We map the concentration heterogeneity across the salar before pilot siting — operators who've used us have been able to relocate pilots 1–3 km to meaningfully higher-grade intervals, materially changing pilot economics.

Is the output suitable for an NI 43-101 or JORC preliminary resource estimate?

Our output is a pre-drill screening and targeting tool, not a resource estimate. It shortens the path to a resource declaration by reducing holes-to-first-resource, but the declaration itself still requires independent drilling, assay, and qualified-person sign-off per the relevant code.

How do you handle permit-constrained salars where environmental approvals take years?

Remote survey bypasses the field-access permitting bottleneck entirely. You can evaluate an entire claim package while environmental approval for drilling progresses — then spend drill capital where our maps indicate the strongest signal. For several clients this has meaningfully compressed their effective exploration cycle.

Can you screen multiple adjacent claim blocks in one engagement?

Yes. Portfolio-scale lithium screens are a common engagement — claims totaling 50,000–500,000 hectares in a single scope. Unit economics improve significantly at scale.

Let's scope it

Compress your lithium exploration cycle by years.

Send us claim boundaries or area of interest. We'll return a scope, timeline, and indicative pricing — under NDA — within one business day.

Request an Assessment See the Technology