Status and future perspectives of airborne magnetic gradiometry

Airborne magnetics is one of the most used methods in metalliferous mining geophysics. Full tensor magnetic gradiometer instruments overcome many of the limitations of total field and vector magnetic field sensors, and provide a significant improvement in spatial resolution. The use of new quantum sensors has greatly enhanced the full tensor gradiometry measurement over existing state of the art technologies. The status of the various sensor technologies and SQUID- based instruments is given and one case study is presented.