About Exploration Maps

A mapping tool built specifically for junior mining and exploration companies — not adapted from something else, not a GIS platform with a simpler UI bolted on. Built from scratch around how exploration teams actually work.

The Problem

Every junior explorer needs maps. Claims maps for filings. Drill results maps for news releases. Location maps for investor decks. These maps have to look professional — they end up in NI 43-101 technical reports, MD&As, and presentations shown to institutional investors.

The tools available to produce them were never designed for this. ArcGIS and QGIS are powerful GIS platforms built for spatial analysts. They require weeks of training to produce a single clean map, and their exports require significant post-processing in Illustrator to meet the visual standard investors expect. The workflow is slow, fragile, and requires skills most exploration teams don't have in-house.

The alternative — paying a GIS contractor or consulting firm to produce maps — costs hundreds to thousands of dollars per map and creates a bottleneck every time data changes. And data always changes.

For companies working with tight budgets and faster timelines, neither option works well. A geologist updating drill results before a financing announcement shouldn't need to wait three days and spend $800 for a map revision.

What Exploration Maps Does

Exploration Maps is a browser-based tool that lets exploration geologists and IR teams produce professional maps themselves, without GIS training. Import your claims boundary as a GeoJSON, assign a layer role, choose a design theme, and export a print-ready PDF or PNG in minutes.

The tool handles the decisions that used to require expertise:

• Layer roles (Claims, Drillholes, Targets, Infrastructure) apply industry-standard styling automatically — the conventional blue for mineral claims, the colour schemes used in NI 43-101 reports
• Design themes are calibrated for specific outputs — the Investor theme is clean and boardroom-appropriate, the Technical theme meets the visual standards expected in regulatory filings
• Export ratios match the documents they go into — 16:9 for PowerPoint, Letter Portrait for technical reports, the exact figure sizes required for news releases
• Scale bars and north arrows are generated automatically and update as you pan and zoom

The result is a map that looks like it came from a GIS consultant, produced in the time it takes to make a coffee.

Who It's For

Exploration Maps is built for:

• Junior mining companies — early-stage explorers with one or two properties, no in-house GIS capability, and a constant need for maps for investor communications
• Exploration geologists who understand the data and want to control how it's presented without learning a GIS platform
• IR and communications teams who need to update maps quickly when drill results come in or claims boundaries change
• Technical report authors who need NI 43-101 compliant figures that meet the visual standards regulators and QPs expect

Where It's Headed

The tool is early. Right now it handles the most common map types — claims, drill results, location maps, target generation, and infrastructure. The export quality is production-ready. The design system is built around real maps from real technical reports.

The roadmap is driven by what exploration teams actually need: more data formats, more map types, collaboration features for teams, and deeper integration with the regulatory workflows junior explorers deal with.

If you have a use case, a workflow problem, or something that doesn't work the way you need it to — reach out. This is built for a specific community and that community's feedback is what shapes it.