Projects in this group undertake specialist studies in metallogeny with an emphasis on defining the empirical regional to district scale parameters that enhance an understanding of the controls on the distribution in space and time of Australian Ore deposits and facilitate the development of empirical exploration models. As this project focuses on defining empirical criteria, developing techniques for data-driven analysis and data mining of Geoscience Australia's data assets is a high priority activity. The goal is to seek repetitive patterns and associations on the district to regional scale that may provide new insights into regional controls on the distribution of mineralisation. The empirical results are complemented by high quality hydrothermal modelling which seeks to simulate the full mineral system of source, transport and deposition for the major fluid types associated with major Australian ore deposit types, and their subsequent geochemical history including dispersion halos related to surficial geochemical processes. A specific activity is to develop means of predicting the geophysical properties of the modelled mineral assemblages.
The work of this group in part contributes to Program 4 - Fluids of the pmd*CRC.
Improved understanding of Australian mineral deposits with emphasis on their relationship in space and time to regional petrographic and tectonic features of the Australian Crust.