This module aims to provide understanding of the major types of mineral deposit through a critical assessment of conceptual models of deposit forming processes. There is an emphasis on geochemistry and quantitative methods. Content is delivered through on-line lectures with the aim of understanding: how mineral resources are formed; synthesising their distribution in space and time and evaluating this distribution in relation to overall Earth evolution; considering sustainability and the role of economics and politics. Practical understanding of mineral exploration is achieved through team-based role-playing activities in which students are divided into exploration companies. Each company has a two-stage budget and has to decide how to spend it on sampling, mapping, geochemical analysis, trenching and drilling. Each team presents an interim verbal report on the first stage followed by a second-stage final executive report summarising findings and providing an evaluation of gold resource. Assessment is split between the team exploration project (50%) and a final coursework essay (50%) from a choice of three topics. The team project uses peer assessment to produce individual marks for team members. This module has encouraged many students to follow mineral exploration careers.