Lightning data was first collected to study meteorolgy effects. Insurance companies found out meteorolgists could tell them whether there was a lightning strike within a certain radius, and started funding improvements in the system. According to Dr. Richard Orville, who set up the first lightning detection stations in the early 1980's, 60% of the houses claimed to having been burned down by ligthning were fraudlant or misrepresented. This is why development of the the Natinal Lightning Dectection Network (NLDN) was completely outside the perview of explorationists. Then airports and golf courses wanted to be warned when lightning was in the vacinity. Now we can watch on our nightly weather report all of the lightning strike locations in the area where we live. Dynamic Measurement LLC has pioneered using lightning data as a tool for natural resource exploration since 2008.