Well, there was a time I listed over 700 mining companies in my spreadsheets, and tried to keep them updated, but them realized I needed some sleep. I can't follow everything, and the desert dirts are one area where I just could not keep up. Sorry ......
As for geography, I miss the old days of areas plays. Remember when everyone got excited about the Guyana Shield area and pumped up those shares, them they hopped to West Africa for the other half, them we had Labrador nickel, NWT diamonds, Indonesia, etc.. About the only area play recently is Ontario PGMS. The mining companies know where most of the deposits are located and there will not be much money put into finding big new discoveries, if they exist. At current metal prices, economics has taken over and development of known deposits and profitability of current deposits remains the focus.
I put some charts together on a page to show how mining has changed in the last 30 years. We went from 40 million ounces of production with 2/3 from South Africa to over 80 million ounces (up over 100%) diversified worldwide production (RSA under 25%) The technologies of heap leaching, SW/EX, autoclaves, etc.. have made the US and Australia huge producers of gold. Countries that produced almost no gold in 1970 are now in the 1+ million ounce club - PNG, Indonesia, Ghana, Chile, Peru, etc .......
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