DIR Exploration, Inc., started business in 1983 as an Arizona limited partnership occupied with identifying and obtaining uranium breccia pipe prospects south of the Grand Canyon in Coconino County, Arizona. Founded by three geologists : Larry D. Turner, Irving L. Turner, and Mohammed Ikramuddin -- by 1987 the partnership had negotiated an exploration joint venture with PNC Exploration (USA), Inc., an overseas corporate arm of the government-owned Japanese nuclear power industry. DIR is a subchapter-S corporation, incorporated in 1987 in Arizona. Its board of directors consists of its senior member, Irving L. Turner (also executive vice-president), and Larry D. Turner (also president and managing geologist).

DIR operates following the organic* corporate structural model, the model believed to be most appropriate to technical, knowledge- and data-based businesses operating in extremely dynamic, competitive, and unpredictable industries. In companies that are organized organically, the individual agents of the corporation are relatively few, are comparatively multi-functional, and understand most, if not all, of the working hypotheses guiding the actions of the company. Hierarchical structure of organic corporations, including that of DIR, is extremely flat. The multi-tasking ability and understanding of an organic corporation's agents make it possible for the organically-organized company as a whole to quickly, competently, and economically adjust to externally and internally changing circumstances. In the mineral exploration industry, alternative, more rigid (mechanistic) corporate structures appear to operate in an appreciably more cumbersome, and less economically- and less technically-efficient fashion.


This interrelatedness of the form and function of its agents within DIR's corporate structure is mirrored in its exploration technical approach. Rather than see exploration geology, geophysics, and geochemistry as separate, independent disciplines, DIR views each of these fields instead as co-varying but different scientific 'senses' directed towards the same object. This technical perspective naturally looks for a large degree of agreement among geological, geophysical, and geochemical observations, and presumably this viewpoint, when followed rigorously, leads its adherents to an increased probability of exploration success.





DIR believes that the 'free-energy' and associated high level of economic rents inherent in mineral deposits of high ore quality makes them the most appropriate targets of mineral explorationists in this milieu of increasing fossil energy scarcity and increasing mineral depletion. For an exposition of the empirical basis of this positive statement, see Turner 1998. In DIR's view, collapse breccia pipe uranium mineralization is one example of a currently appropriate mineral exploration target.

Before and during its 1987-1993 joint venture with the Japanese, organically-organized DIR proved itself capable of conducting the prospect generation and surface exploration phases of uranium breccia pipe exploration much more rapidly and economically than its much larger, more strongly funded competitors. For example, large competitor structural prospect generation in northern Arizona in the 1980s was carried out primarily by employing slow and expensive helicopter reconnaissance surveys. DIR, on the other hand, found that the same work could be much more rapidly and effectively carried out by using methods of geomorphological analysis. In spite of its late exploration start in the region, this technique advantage allowed DIR to quickly recognize and then stake more than 20 breccia pipe prospect structures on the south side of the Grand Canyon (South Rim District) well in advance of Energy Fuels Nuclear, Inc., Pathfinder Mines Corporation, Uranerz, and Rocky Mountain Energy Company. Appreciable technical exploration success notwithstanding, the DIR-PNC joint venture ended in early 1993 when the uranium price dipped below $15/pound.

DIR and Takara Resources agreed to terminate their 2006-2009 joint venture in September 2009.  This termination was due, ultimately, to the same temporary circumstances that led to Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar 's July 2009 2-year withdrawal of 1,000,000 acres of breccia pipe-bearing public lands from new mineral entry.  At this time, DIR is self-funding its continuing breccia pipe exploration work in the general Arizona exploration region.