Despite exploration budgets remaining at comparatively high levels in the past decades, geologists have only been able to find a fraction of the gold ounces they discovered in the preceding 18-year period, a new analysis conducted by S&P Global Market Intelligence shows. The financial information and analytics firm said that despite exploration budgets having declined from the ten-year peak in 2012 to $54.3-billion in the past decade - almost 60% higher when compared with the $32.2-billion spent on gold exploration in the preceding 18 years - only 215.5-million ounces of gold has been defined in 41 discoveries over the most recent ten years, compared with 1.73-billion ounces found in 222 discoveries in the preceding 18 years.Read full news