I did not mean to seem as if I was attacking you, I wasn't. I'm always curious about such things too.

I recall one from about 20 years ago I thougt quite interesting. It wasn't exactly proprietary technology, but it was something new. That was testing for mercury vapor over certain kinds of polymetallic deposits. It did seem to work, but could not well descriminate economic deposits from uneconomic ones. It therefore did not save any steps in the exploration process.