The technology has moved from aerial photography to multispectral and now, hyperspectral remote sensing. These advanced technologies provide the ability to accurately read the chemical properties of surface substances and produce easily interpreted maps showing where and what the material is. Within the realm of exploration, remote sensing does not replace the need for geological knowledge, geochemistry, geophysics, seismic, drilling, etc, which are some of the more conventional tools used for exploration. Remote sensing does, however, identify more exploration targets faster and improves the probability of finding anomalies. Conventional exploration methods would take decades to cover the same ground, and at increased cost, the same task that can be performed by utilizing airborne hyperspectral technology.
Similar benefits exist in the agriculture, marine, forestry and environmental fields.
Prior to the development of hyperspectral systems in the late nineties, multispectral instruments provided the only remote sensing capability from the air or space. Multispectral means these instruments can only record and analyze a few bands of the spectrum. The difference is achieved by splitting the light spectrum more times. The resulting improvement in spectral resolution enables a trained geologist to read the chemistry of the object viewed, yielding more substantive information, and enables him to identify what is there instead of merely learning that something is there. Hyperspectral remote sensing can best be described as a system that collects and provides a unique reflectance signature of many materials reflecting sunlight from the surface of the Earth.