March 2015

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

1. Australian Operating Mines Map 2014
2. Australian Mineral Exploration Review for 2013-14
3. Highlights and Insights Articles published in conjunction with ASEG
4. Geochronology Reports have been released in collaboration with State and Territory Geological Survey partners
5. Rock Properties Database
6. Update on geophysical data releases
7. About Minerals Alert

1. Australian Operating Mines Map 2014

The recently released Australian operating mines map shows operating mines, developing mines and selected mineral deposits in Australia at 1:7500000 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. It is available as a free download.

2. Australian Mineral Exploration Review for 2013-14

The Australian Mineral Exploration Review for 2013-14 provides an overview of results from Australia's mineral exploration during the 2013-14 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 publication also presents summaries of Australian, State and Northern Territory government initiatives which assist the mineral exploration sector. The record is available as a free download.

3. Highlights and Insights Articles published in conjunction with ASEG 2015

Latest editions of Magnetic Anomaly Grid and Radiometric Map released - 17 February 2015

Australia will now be able to lay claim to the best geophysical data coverage of all the continents on Earth following the release of the sixth edition Total Magnetic Intensity (TMI) Anomaly Grid of Australia and the third edition Radiometric Map of Australia datasets.

Australian continent uncovered by new 3D model - 19 February 2015

Models derived from geophysical properties of rocks are an important source of information about the geological structure hidden below the Earth's surface. Australia is fortunate to be the sole occupant of a single continent and provides the perfect laboratory for continental-scale studies of these geophysical properties

New airborne electromagnetic data reduces mineral exploration risk - 20 February 2015

The recent release of the southern Thomson Orogen VTEMplus® airborne electromagnetic (AEM) survey dataset will provide better context for understanding the mineral potential of this relatively data-poor region of central and eastern Australia.

4. Geochronology Reports have been released in collaboration with State and Territory Geological Survey partners

• GA Record 2015/002 by Bodorkos et al. reports SHRIMP U-Pb zircon age results from 19 samples of magmatic rocks from the central and eastern Lachlan Orogen, New South Wales.
• NTGS Record 2014-008 by Kositcin et al. reports SHRIMP U-Pb zircon ages results from 6 samples of magmatic, metamorphic and metasedimentary rocks from the Arunta Region in the Northern Territory.

Work contained in these reports was conducted under the auspices of National Collaboration Framework agreements between Geoscience Australia, the Geological Survey of New South Wales and the Northern Territory Geological Survey. Geochronology data used in the reports are available for download via the Geochron Delivery system.

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

5. Rock Properties Database

Geoscience Australia has a released a beta version of its new Rock Properties Database. This database currently contains over 120,000 rows of data including surface and bore hole mass density, magnetic susceptibility and magnetic remanence, amongst others, from all Australian States and Territories. The data are tagged with 3-dimensional coordinates (XYZ), stratigraphy, lithology and other metadata in a machine-readable format suitable for geophysical modelling purposes.

The database can be interrogated and downloaded in part or in full using the Rock Properties Explorer discovery and delivery tool.

The database is also available as web services (WMS and WFS) for direct consumption into GIS and geophysical modelling software through the Geoscience Australia website.

Geoscience Australia invites the geoscience community to test the database via the discovery and delivery tool and web services and to provide feedback. We are also keen to obtain donations of legacy datasets from industry and academia to add to the knowledge of Australia's petrophysics.

6. Update on geophysical data releases

Geoscience Australia is managing the geophysical data acquisition programs in Western Australia, Victoria, 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.

7. About Minerals Alert

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