AusGeo News  June 2011  Issue No. 102

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Australia's mineral resources maintain world status

Image: Cover of Australia's Identified Mineral Resources 2010.

A recent assessment by Geoscience Australia concludes that Australia's mining sector continues to hold the potential to remain the most important export earning sector of the Australian economy for the foreseeable future. This trend is based on the latest annual assessment of Australia's minerals inventory—Australia's Identified Mineral Resources 2010.

Australia's Identified Mineral Resources 2010 includes estimates of Australia's mineral resources at the end of December 2009 for all major and several minor mineral commodities based on published and unpublished data available to Geoscience Australia. These resource estimates give a long term view of what is likely to be mined. They are compared with national totals of ore reserves for each commodity, which provides the industry view of what is likely to be mined in the short to medium term. Mine production data are based on figures from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences.

The assessment provides information on and analysis of mineral exploration expenditures in Australia in recent years and shows that Australia's Economic Demonstrated Resources (EDR)* for a number of mineral commodities increased during 2009. These include:

A free download of Australia's Identified Mineral Resources 2010 is available through the Geoscience Australia website and other fundamental data on the minerals sector can be accessed through the Atlas of Australia's Mineral Resources, Mines and Processing Centres.

* Companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange are required to report publicly on Ore Reserves and Mineral Resources under their control, using the Joint Ore Reserves Committee (JORC) Code. Data reported for individual deposits are compiled by Geoscience Australia and used in the preparation of national assessments of Australia's mineral resources. EDR are estimated by the addition of JORC Code figures for Proven and Probable Ore Reserves plus that part of the JORC Measured and/or Indicated Mineral Resources that are considered likely to be economic.

For more information email ausgeomail@ga.gov.au

Related websites/articles

Australia's Identified Mineral Resources 2010

Atlas of Australia's Mineral Resources, Mines and Processing Centres.


New Gazetteer of Australia online!

Image: Section of DVD label for Gazetteer of Australia 2010.

The Gazetteer of Australia is the authoritative source for the location and spelling of approved place names for Australia and its territories. The recently released 10th edition—Gazetteer of Australia 2010—contains more than 332 000 official and unofficial place names, with data supplied by the Australian, state and territory government agencies responsible for administering place names.

The production and distribution of the Gazetteer of Australia 2010 was overseen by Geoscience Australia on behalf of the Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying & Mapping (ICSM). The committee, which includes representatives from each jurisdiction, has been custodian of the Gazetteer dataset for some time and provided the specifications for compilation of the data.

The Gazetteer of Australia 2010 is the first version to be available under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia licence. This licence allows the user to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt the data for their own purposes with the only condition being that users must attribute the source of the original data.

Figure 1. The Pine Creek airborne electromagnetic survey boundary locations showing the Kombolgie, Woolner and Rum Jungle areas.

Another feature of this version is that the data can be downloaded for free through the Geoscience Australia website, in MS Access and ASCII format. This will make the gazetteer a more convenient reference for users requiring authoritative place names across Australia.

For more information visit Geoscience Australia free data download

Related websites/articles

Geoscience Australia's Place Name Search facility

Unless otherwise noted, all Geoscience Australia material on this website is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia Licence.