Minerals Alert March 2014

A monthly online newsletter with product news, data releases and projects relating to the minerals and energy exploration industry.

  1. UNCOVER Summit: Adelaide Convention Centre 31 March-2 April 2014
  2. Depth-of-Cover technical workshop: University of Adelaide 2-3 April 2014
  3. Albany-Fraser seismic and gravity data release
  4. Albany-Fraser Orogen reflection seismic and MT survey interpretation workshop, Perth 9 April, 2014
  5. Stavely Regional Drilling Project, western Victoria: sulfur isotopic fingerprinting of Cambrian copper systems
  6. Australian Mineral Exploration Review for 2013
  7. Update on geophysical data releases
  8. About Minerals Alert

1. UNCOVER Summit: Adelaide Convention Centre 31 March-2 April 2014

The UNCOVER Implementation committee, under the aegis of the Australian Academy of Science, is hosting a summit at the Adelaide Convention Centre from 31 March to 2 April, 2014 to consider the challenge of mineral exploration beneath Australia's cover.

UNCOVER is a call to the exploration geoscience community in industry, government and academia to collaborate on a scale not previously attempted in Australia, beginning with this landmark summit. The objective of UNCOVER is to achieve a step change in knowledge and methodologies in the Earth sciences that is relevant to mineral exploration beneath the 80% of the Australian continent which is under cover. This is not a conference - the UNCOVER summit is a facilitated cross-sector collaboration, which is driven by industry's need to do things differently. Come prepared to work and participate in discussions about the future of exploration geoscience in Australia.

2. Depth-of-Cover technical workshop: University of Adelaide 2-3 April 2014

Geoscience Australia is hosting a technical workshop at the University of Adelaide on 2¿3 April, 2014. The workshop will attempt to develop practical solutions for determining the depth of cover at the tenement scale by identifying the best trade-off between accuracy and cost for the range of Australian regolith environments. The range of methods currently being used will be discussed by experts in their field, with much of the workshop given over to discussion on the limits and practicalities associated with the depth of cover. The technical workshop will appeal to explorers designing regional drilling programs.

More information and registration details are available for both the summit and the technical workshop External site link.

3. Albany-Fraser seismic and gravity data release

The last of the seismic and gravity data collected from the Albany-Fraser Orogen on behalf of the Geological Survey of Western Australia (GSWA) have been released.

In 2012, Geoscience Australia acquired 672 kilometres of new, 2D seismic reflection and gravity data over the Albany-Fraser Orogen of Western Australia, which included two lines in the Esperance area (AF1 and AF2) and a line along the Trans Australian Railway (AF3). The survey was carried out in conjunction with the GSWA as part of the Western Australian Government's Exploration Incentive Scheme. The primary objectives were to image the crustal architecture of the Yilgarn Craton's eastern margin and its relationship to the Albany-Fraser Orogen, as well as establish the subsurface extent of the Yilgarn Craton beneath the Albany-Fraser Orogen. It was also aimed at identifying any mantle-tapping structures which may have provided fluid pathways for mineralisation.

A 70 kilometre long, deep crustal seismic line was acquired also near the Tropicana Gold mine in the Albany-Fraser Orogen through an Australian National Seismic Imaging Resource (ANSIR) Earth imaging project, with funding from AngloGold Ashanti and the Independence Group NL. The purpose of this line was to understand the structural geometry around the Tropicana gold deposit and help define prospective areas elsewhere along the belt. The Tropicana data is scheduled to be released in late April 2014.

Free downloads are available for the new Albany-Fraser Orogen 2D seismic survey dataset as well as for the Albany-Fraser Orogen gravity dataset which is available also via Geophysical Archive Data Delivery System (GADDS). Further information on Geoscience Australia projects is available at Onshore Seismic and Magnetotelluric project.

4. Albany-Fraser Orogen reflection seismic and MT survey interpretation workshop, Perth 9 April, 2014

The workshop in Perth on 9 April, 2014 will consider data obtained from the Albany-Fraser Orogen deep seismic reflection survey. That survey acquired 672 line-kilometres of vibroseis-source, deep seismic reflection and gravity data as well as 400 kilometres of magnetotelluric (MT) data. The joint Geoscience Australia and Geological Survey of Western Australian survey is the first to provide deep crustal images of the onshore component of the Albany-Fraser Orogen, which is a highly prospective area that hosts the Tropicana gold and the Nova nickel deposits. The Perth workshop will consider interpretations of the newly acquired data, including an 80 kilometre long seismic survey which transects the Tropicana gold deposit.

Registration details and the workshop program are available from the Geological Survey of Western Australia.

5. Stavely Regional Drilling Project, western Victoria: sulfur isotopic fingerprinting of Cambrian copper systems

Geoscience Australia and the Geological Survey of Victoria are collaborating on a regional drilling project in the Stavely region of western Victoria. The project is aimed at increasing the investment attractiveness of this under-explored region by reducing exploration risk through an improved understanding of the subsurface geology. Pilot sulfur isotope data were acquired from existing drill core as part of a mineral system study from three suspected porphyry and VHMS prospects, Thursdays Gossan, Mount Ararat, and Eclipse.

At Thursdays Gossan, ¿34S values from the argillic alteration zone (-4 parts per mil to 3 parts per mil) and from the zone with porphyry-style veins (-6.4 parts per mil to 0.4 parts per mil) are consistent with typical magmatic porphyry values, and are different from the signature of Cambrian massive sulfide mineralisation as expressed by Mount Ararat (4 parts per mil to 6.9 parts per mil) or Wickliffe (Donaghy, 1994). Data for Eclipse (-1.4 parts per mil to 3.2 parts per mil) are permissive of a porphyry style of mineralisation (i.e., close to zero magmatic value) and are lower than would be expected from typical Cambrian massive sulfide mineralisation. The initial results are being followed up by additional analysis. Porphyry systems are attractive for explorers because they tend to occur in clusters and their likely presence makes the wider, under cover parts of the Stavely region highly prospective for copper.

The data are published with the assistance and permission of Navarre Minerals and Stavely Minerals. Information on the Stavely Regional Drilling Project is available from Regional Drilling Projects.

6. Australian Mineral Exploration Review for 2013

The Australian Mineral Exploration Review for 2013 provides an overview of results from Australia's mineral exploration during 2013. The report highlights exploration expenditure and results from selected drill intersections announced by individual exploration and mining companies. It also contains a selection of drill hole results and graphs of exploration expenditure trends for specific commodities, as well as reference maps and exploration results for each deposit. In addition, the publication presents summaries of Australian, State and Northern Territory government initiatives which assist the mineral exploration sector. The review is available as a free download.

7. Update on geophysical data releases

Geoscience Australia manages the geophysical data acquisition programs in Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory.

The current status of Geoscience Australia's geophysical survey data acquisition is available in a comprehensive table.

Minerals Alert Geophysical Surveys Table - survey boundary polygons in MapInfo TAB format.

8. About Minerals Alert

For more information, please email clientservices@ga.gov.au; or phone 1800 800 173.