Synonyms:
prospector
Meaning: someone who explores an area for mineral deposits
Usage examples
Great areas on the edge of civilization still await the pioneer, the prospector, and the miner.
That is the hope that draws the prospector from river to stream, from stream to dry gully bed, from dry gully to precipice edge, and often over the edge to death or fortune.
What the trapper was to the fur trade, the prospector was to the mining era that ushered civilization into the wilds with a blare of dance-halls and wine and wassail and greed.