The Onshore Energy Security Program will deliver a wide range of new geoscientific datasets which will underpin an improved knowledge of Australia's onshore energy resources, including uranium, petroleum, geothermal and thorium. This will be achieved via a series of integrated national and regional projects targeted where the maximum impact can be achieved. The Uranium Systems Project is one of the national projects within the Onshore Energy Security Program.
The primary purpose of the Uranium Systems Project is to provide advice to the Australian Government on Australia's uranium resource potential as well as deliver new pre-competitive datasets and concepts to the minerals industry which will promote new search areas and reduce risk in the discovery of Australia's uranium resources.
As with other projects under the Onshore Energy Security Program, the Uranium Systems Project will work collaboratively with the State and the Northern Territory geological surveys under the auspices of the National Geoscience Agreement. Collaborative arrangements with universities, industry and other Australian Government agencies, including the CSIRO, are being developed.
The project is applying a holistic approach to its investigations of uranium mineral systems. This involves taking a multi-scale view from deposit, to district and crustal scales of the geological processes and spatial controls on uranium mineralisation. An understanding of the key geological factors necessary in the formation of major uranium deposits will enable more rigorous predictions of the potential of greenfield and brownfield terranes for uranium mineralisation. This is particularly important in Australia where uranium-prospective rock units may be concealed beneath extensive regolith or younger sedimentary rocks. The systems approach employed in this project will provide a new framework for interrelating apparently diverse styles of uranium mineralisation and for identifying the potential for hybrids of conventional deposit styles.
The Uranium Systems Project will focus initially on documenting the spatial distribution of known uranium-rich rocks and uranium occurrences in Australia. This will involve compilation of lithogeochemical data and integrating that information with new Onshore Energy Secturity Program datasets such as radiometric data re-levelled using results from the current Australia-wide geophysical survey (AWAGS2), the National Geochemical Survey, and the new 1:1 000 000 geological map of Australia. Aspects of the compilation will be done in collaboration with the Geothermal Energy Project. Results will be delivered as a series of digital map products.
The data compilation and synthesis will be complemented by studies aimed at better understanding the processes of uranium transport through the landscape, its deposition and spatial controls on mineralisation. These will include petrological and geochronological studies of selected uranium mineralised systems in Australia along with numerical modelling of uranium mineralising processes.
In future years of the Onshore Energy Security Program, the Uranium Systems Project and regional projects will focus progressively on regional prospectivity analysis of uranium as new data are acquired in regional project areas. The data will include deep and shallow crustal seismic, airborne electromagnetics and geological and geochronological data. Such data will enable 3D models of crustal and basin architecture to be built, which is fundamental to assessments of the potential for uranium mineralisation in each region. The assessments will be delivered as a series of map-based 2D and 3D products, highlighting geological elements considered critical in formation of major uranium deposits. An example of a 2D mineral potential map is available showing iron oxide copper-gold-uranium mineral systems in the Gawler Craton.
| Publication title | Authors |
|---|---|
| Uranium ore-forming systems of the Lake Frome region, South Australia. Geoscience Australia Record 2009/040 |
Edited by RG Skirrow |
| Geoscience Australia Record 2009/20: Uranium Mineral Systems: Processes, exploration criteria and a new deposit framework | RG Skirrow, S Jaireth, DL Huston , EN Bastrakov, A Schofield, SE van der Wielen and AC Barnicoat |
| Geoscience Australia Record 2009/17: Uranium Content of Igneous Rocks of Australia 1:5 000 000 Maps: Explanatory notes and discussion | A Schofield |
| AusGeo News Dec 2005, Issue No. 80: Why Australia has so much uranium | I Lambert, S Jaireth, AD McKay and Y Miezitis |
| Australia's uranium resources, geology and development of deposits | AD McKay and Y Miezitis |
Uranium Systems project email: uranium@ga.gov.au