Minerals Alert April 2016

April 2016

A monthly online newsletter with product news, data releases and project highlights relating to the minerals and energy exploration industries.

  1. Australian Mineral Exploration Review for 2014-15
  2. Australian Operating Mines Map 2015
  3. Release of new geochronology reports for the Arunta Region and McArthur Basin, Northern Territory, and the Mossman Orogen, Queensland
  4. Workshop on Australia's Ni-Cu-PGE mineral potential - new data, new targets
  5. Update on geophysical data releases
  6. About Minerals Alert

1. Australian Mineral Exploration Review for 2014-15

The Australian Mineral Exploration Review for 2014-15 provides an overview of results from Australia's mineral exploration during the 2014-15 financial year. 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, graphs of exploration expenditure trends for specific commodities and reference maps and exploration results for each deposit.

The record is available as a free download.

For more information, please email Client Services; or phone 1800 800 173.

2. Australian Operating Mines Map 2015

The recently released Australian operating mines map shows operating mines, developing mines and selected mineral deposits in Australia at 1:7 500 000 scale. This map broadly illustrates the geographic distribution of the mines and deposits and the range of selected, largely grouped, commodities. This information is superimposed on a generalised surface geology map of Australia and an aeromagnetic image in grey scale.

The record is available as a free download.

For more information, please email Client Services; or phone 1800 800 173.

3. Release of new geochronology reports for the Arunta Region and McArthur Basin, Northern Territory, and the Mossman Orogen, Queensland

Three new geochronology reports have been released in the past month by Geoscience Australia in collaboration with the Northern Territory Geological Survey and the Geological Survey of Queensland.

Northern Territory Geological Survey Record 2015-007 by Kositcin et al., reports new SHRIMP U-Pb zircon ages from magmatic and metamorphic rocks from the Arunta Region.

Northern Territory Geological Survey Record 2015-008 by Kositcin et al., reports new SHRIMP U-Pb detrital zircon ages from the McArthur Basin.

Queensland Geological Record 2015/04 by Kositcin et al., reports new SHRIMP U-Pb zircon results from several samples of the Hodgkinson Formation in the Mossman Orogen of north Queensland.

In each case, the results were collected in Geoscience Australia's in-house SHRIMP laboratory under National Collaborative Framework agreements between Geoscience Australia and the relevant State or Territory geological survey.

Geochronology data presented and discussed in each of these reports are also available for download via Geoscience Australia's Geochron Delivery system.

For more information on geochronology at Geoscience Australia, please email geochronology@ga.gov.au

4. Workshop on Australia's Ni-Cu-PGE mineral potential - new data, new targets

Geoscience Australia and the Australian Institute of Geoscientists will present a workshop in Perth on 10 June describing the results, approach, and datasets of a continental-scale study of Australia's potential for intrusion-hosted nickel-copper-platinum-group element (Ni-Cu-PGE) ore deposits. The report and accompanying digital spatial data were published recently.

Ni-Cu-PGE sulfide ore deposits hosted by mafic-ultramafic intrusions represent some of the world's most important sources of these metals, which are crucial for a range of industrial and high-tech applications. Only a few small to medium sized deposits of this type are presently known in Australia, yet the abundance of possible host rocks suggests Australia has unrecognised potential for large deposits.

The results of the GA study highlight known mineralised provinces, their extensions under cover, and several greenfields regions representing new 'search spaces' for possible Ni-Cu-PGE mineralisation. The GIS-based mapping of prospectivity was based on the mineral systems concept, and integrates a wide range of continental datasets including: novel views of seismic and other geophysical and isotopic data (e.g., Nd) to map crustal and mantle architecture; a new map dataset of mafic-ultramafic magmatic events including Large Igneous Provinces; and geochemical discriminants linked to the spatial-temporal distribution of possible host rocks.

Place: Australian Resources Research Centre auditorium, 26 Dick Perry Avenue, Kensington, Western Australia
Date: 10 June 2016
Time: 10:15 to 14:00, registration from 09:45
Cost: Free, including light lunch
Registration: Email Jocelyn Thomson jaytee@iinet.net.au or call 08 9355 2164
Further details of the program to be advised.

5. Update on geophysical data releases

Geoscience Australia will be managing the data acquisition program in Western Australia, South Australia, Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory.

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

To obtain further details on the survey acquisition, please email Client Services; or phone 1800 800 173.

6. About Minerals Alert

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