That's pretty much it.
Surface Prospecting is, basically, jumping in your SRV and hooning around until you pick up some kind of signal on the wave-scanner on the dashboard.
When you pick something up, drive toward it and the signal will get stronger and stronger.
Eventually, something will appear on your scanner. It'll be an Outcrop, a Bronzite Chrondite, a Metallic Meteorite or something like that.
Shoot it and mat's will pop out.
Deploy your SRV cargo scoop, target the mat's and scoop 'em up.
Alternatively, you can fit a DSS to your ship, shoot some probes at a planet and try to locate a geological/biological POI.
If you do, you can target it in your nav-HUD (in just the same way that you'd target an engineer's base before landing), fly down to it and then it's a similar procedure to above.
You'll see a whole area covered in geysers/fumaroles/whatever.
Only
some of them provide mat's.
Your SRV scanner will lead you to sources of mat's.
Target something, shoot it and it'll drop a mat'.
Surface Prospecting might
seem better cos it's a bit more fun and outcrops/meteorites drop piles of mat's all at the same time.
Trouble is, there's a whole planet to search and the RNG decides what you find and how often you find it.
Going to a surface POI provides you with a limited quantity of stuff, and each drop is just a single mat' (well, a stack of 3x mat's but, y'know), but they're a more reliable source of mat's and, erm, relogging is a thing.
*EDIT*
If you're in-game now and want some help, gimme a shout.
