"preliminary exploration" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
You could use it to describe the initial phase of a research project, for example: The research team conducted a preliminary exploration to determine which questions to include in the survey.
Our study aimed to provide a preliminary exploration into these issues, specifically seeking to qualitatively explore the views of research participants on sample storage and re-use.
The museum has "no immediate plans to move," she added, but she acknowledged that museum trustees were "in preliminary exploration of other spaces in Lower Manhattan".
This was a preliminary exploration, not a final project, but it could and should have been the basis for what is now being designed.
Watkins said he had already done preliminary exploration on a new park with a retractable roof and estimated its cost at $350 million.
"They were eager to get Lukoil to begin at least preliminary exploration," Mr. Kadiri said in a telephone interview from Vienna, where he was attending the OPEC meeting.
The commission advises anyone doing such preliminary exploration to keep detailed financial records, because if he or she formally becomes a candidate, money raised and spent on testing the waters will be considered as contributions and expenditures under federal law.
That dive, which required a large team of closely coördinated support divers and other helpers, was the culmination of a decade and a half of preliminary exploration and planning.
OM (Leica Microscopy DM6000M, Germany) was used for the preliminary exploration.
Herein, we discuss the preliminary exploration of structure activity relationships within this chemotype.
Examples from structural engineering were selected as convenient for a preliminary exploration.
Preliminary exploration of a new data set often provides valuable insights that inform subsequent analyses.
