App to make mineral exploration easy

And it's about to become a whole lot easier with a new invention that's about to hit the market for fossickers.

Former Western Australian resident Mike Munnely is developing a program that will turn smartphones and tablets into colour seeking devices with uses extending from amateur fossicking to larger mining exploration programs.

"Some mineral colours stand out particularly well such as gold nuggets against the red/brown terrain in large parts of Australia," he said.

"The colour of the mineral is selected in the app and the remainder of the image is greyed out making the target easy to spot."

Although it is still in development stages, Mr Munnelly said he'd like to market it in areas like Mount Isa where amateurs and professionals could use for their benefit.

Mount Isa mineral and gem enthusiast Jim Adlington has searched for his fair share of specimens around the region and said an application like this one may have some success, depending on what you were looking for.

"It would certainly be handy when sorting through lots of loose rubble after you've identified a specimen of interest," he said.

"It could also be used for studying solid rock formations and seams for specimens."

Mount Isa Lapidary Club publicity officer Billy Allen said he was often out in the field searching for gems and minerals and more members were using technology to help them succeed.

"People looking for dig sites or using detectors will use the GPS in their mobile phones to mark a site for later reference or take pictures for their records," he said.

For now the iPhone application is only a work in progress but could have real potential for uses in the North West mineral province.