IMHO I think this thread is veering way off course. Just stop for a moment and think about gold ions. This is simply an atom of gold with one or electrons missing (positively charged) or one or more electrons added (negatively charged). Gold is a highly dense material and therefore relatively heavy. How many gold ions do you think are actually floating around in the atmosphere just waiting to be sucked into a Mineoro detector? I would hazard a guess that it's a very very small number. Now let's assume that a gold coin that fell from someone's pocket 50 year's ago is now happily languishing just below the top soil. Do you honestly believe, that if you were to recover this coin, it would show the slightest oxidation relative to the day it was lost? Of course not. So what mechanism could possibly be used to detect this coin from say 50m away? It is simply ludicrous to think that an LRL based on the Mineoro principles would detect anything apart from random electromagnetic noise. Adding to this the concept of target discrimination from such a distance is pure fantasy.
The links that were posted as evidence of gold ions being released from longtime buried gold, in fact have very little specific references to gold. Only MMI Geochemistry are claiming to have a technique for locating gold by analysing a sample of the surface soil. Of course the technique is highly secret and not patented.
Apparently the mobile ions gravitate to the surface where they are loosely attached to soil particles. So (according to the MMI theory) the ions are trapped in the surface soil. Which hardly supports the Mineoro concept that these heavy ions leave the surface and float off into the atmosphere. In fact they quote "
For example a Cu, Pb, Zn base metal deposit will emit (release) Cu, Pb and Zn ions.". Hmmmm.... no gold then?? 