The global boom in commodities is encouraging mining companies to go exploring in countries where just a few years ago they would never have considered putting their geologists at risk.
The latest "hot" destinations - as in highly prospective, rather than in the military sense of highly dangerous - include countries like Burkina Faso and the Central African Republic (CAR), which until now have not featured on exploration radar screens.
Former "no go" zones such as Angola are starting to look positively civilised, with multinationals like BHP Billiton getting heavily involved, whereas just three years ago the group refused to go exploring for diamonds there because of worries its aeromagnetic reconnaissance plane might get shot down.
The attitude of many foreign mining companies to Africa several years ago was summed up by Chris Ringrose, then exploration manager for Australian junior Troy Resources.
Asked at a mining conference why his company was exploring in such "safe" destinations as Russia, China and Mongolia but not Africa, he replied: "I personally don't want to go into Africa. It's just too hot and scary."
Compare that with the sentiments of another Australian mining executive - Paladin Resources MD John Borshoff - who told delegates to an investment conference in Perth this year that the resources boom now under way "will redefine Africa".
Paladin is developing two uranium mines in Namibia and Malawi. The share is one of the top performers on the Australian Stock Exchange, having risen from A$0,04 to A$2,58 over the past two years.
But certain parts of Africa are still, sadly, "hot and scary". Two examples are the north-eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Eritrea.
Shareholders in Canadian exploration company Nevsun Resources have had a far rougher ride than those in Paladin since Nevsun found a large, high-grade copper/gold deposit at Bisha in Eritrea.
That initially drove the share price from around C$0,5 in December 2001 to more than C$8 by the end of 2003. By the end of 2004 the share price collapsed to C$2 because the Eritrean government halted Nevsun's prospecting work, without explanation.
Nevsun got permission to resume exploring in January this year - again no reason given - and the share price recovered to C$3,50 by March. But it's back below C$2 because of the volatile border situation between Eritrea and Ethiopia, which repeatedly threatens to erupt into a full-scale war.
Nevsun is promoting itself to investors primarily on the basis of its two major gold exploration projects in the far more stable West African country of Mali.
Gold is the "hottest" commodity in the mining sector as heavyweight mining groups and junior explorers alike step up their efforts to find new deposits after about 15 years of neglect.
During that period expenditure on gold exploration was cut back as the gold mines struggled to survive in an environment of squeezed profit margins because of the declining gold price.
Gold bottomed out in 1999 at around US$250/oz. Its steady recovery since has accelerated over the past two years, powering both an exploration drive to find new deposits and renewed takeover activity by larger gold companies.
Barrick's hostile bid for Placer Dome is a prime example of this at the "heavyweight" end of the scale. It has generated a lot of publicity and investor attention.
Almost unnoticed by comparison has been Canadian mid-tier company Iamgold's acquisition of Australian junior Gallery Gold, which over the past two years has successfully brought on stream the Mupane gold mine near Francistown in Botswana. Gallery also has exploration projects in Tanzania.
Exploration in the Lake Victoria "greenstone" gold belt in northern Tanzania has been highly successful, with the development of several new gold mines over the past decade.
The search is now being spread to other parts of Tanzania, with Randgold Resources in August signing a joint venture with the Tanzanian government to explore an area of 2 692 km˛ in the Kiabakari Maji-Moto region. Randgold Resources this year officially opened Loulo - the second new gold mine it has launched in Mali. Its first mine in that country was Morila.
Exploration companies are now moving into areas where gold has been found previously, but which have been left untouched for decades for a variety of reasons, predominantly political and civil strife.
One is the Kilo-Moto region of the DRC, where AngloGold Ashanti is actively exploring, as are other companies, like Australian junior Moto Goldmines, which appointed Sam Jonah as non-executive chairman in August.
Others, like London Alternative Investment Market-listed Pan African Resources, are moving into less well-known regions like the Central African Republic (CAR). Driving Pan African's exploration efforts are SA geologist Anton Esterhuizen and business partner Rob Still.
The two were among the first into Tanzania, where they subsequently sold out their rights to Barrick. Now Pan African CEO Jan Nelson says CAR is at the same stage as the early days in Tanzania. He says Pan African holds title to two of the four known important greenstone belts in the CAR.
He points out these greenstone belts are part of the craton (a large geological formation), which hosts the Kilo-Moto gold belt in the DRC, from which about 10m oz of gold were previously mined.
Ghana, is one of the continent's biggest gold mining success stories, where AngloGold Ashanti has a strong presence - the country is Ashanti's home - and Gold Fields has developed the highly successful Tarkwa mine. US heavyweight Newmont is also building two new mines there.
Newmont has traditionally shunned Africa and preferred safer, First-World countries like Australia, but has now declared Ghana to be a new core gold province for its operations. It is looking to expand its exploration efforts into other parts of West Africa.
Ghana's success has had a knock-on effect with neighbouring Burkina Faso, where Australian junior AIM Resources is developing the Perkoa Zinc project - a project it bought from SA junior miner Metorex, which sold it to concentrate its efforts on the Ruashi-Etoile copper/cobalt project in the DRC.
According to AIM Resources MD Marc Flory: "The Burkina government is being extremely positive and helpful. The government is keen to emulate the success of its neighbour, Ghana, in rapidly developing an active and successful mining sector."
Anyone in Johannesburg remember ex-Randgold executive Mike Sperinck? He emigrated to Perth five years ago, where until recently he worked for large mining consultancy RSG Global.
Sperinck is now MD of Luiri Gold Mines, which is looking at a gold project in Zambia.
Also operating in Zambia are a string of exploration companies looking at copper projects, including Australian junior Equinox Minerals and Teal Resources, which is the Canadian-listed exploration arm of Patrice Motsepe's ARM group.
