Exploring for the Future is a $100.5 million initiative by the Australian Government dedicated to boosting investment in resource exploration in Australia. The four-year program focuses on northern Australia and parts of South Australia.
News & Events
Message from Chief Executive Officer on COVID-19
1 May 2020
As we see on a daily basis, COVID-19 (Coronavirus) is changing the way organisations around the world are carrying out their business.
Resources and energy exports expected to surge to a new record
18 March 2020
Australia’s resource and energy export earnings are forecast to set a record of $299 billion in 2019-20, an increase of $18 billion from 2018-19.
Technology Delivers Results for the North
27 November 2019
Geoscientific data and technology is supporting water infrastructure, investment and innovation in the north, as explained by Dr James Johnson, CEO Geoscience Australia.
Data & Publications
Data discovery portal
Geoscience Australia’s Data Discovery Portal provides free access to new geoscience data and tools acquired and developed during the Exploring for the Future program. The program investigated the mineral, energy and groundwater resource potential in northern Australia and parts of South Australia.
Data releases
As part of the Exploring for the Future multiple new pre-competitive datasets, publications, portal and analytical tools have been released to the public. These datasets maintain GA’s global leadership in the provision of pre-competitive geoscience information and thereby attract resource explorers to Australia.
Extended Abstracts –
coming soon
The extended abstracts
Case Studies
Mapping the Australian Tectonic Plate Thickness
Sustainable development and transition to cleaner energy sources is placing ever-increasing demand on global supplies of base metals (copper, zinc, lead and nickel) and co-produced critical minerals (eg cobalt, germanium).
New Exploration in the East Tennant Area
Mineral exploration is a necessary activity for the continued success of the mining sector in Australia. It has a public good attribute, which means the socially optimal level of exploration activity is greater than the level of exploration activity that would be generated in a pure private market.
Kidson Sub-Basin Prospectivity
The onshore Canning Basin is a large, predominantly Palaeozoic basin which has minor oil and gas production. Despite widespread shows in different geological settings that indicate that there are at least four active petroleum systems, the basin is significantly underexplored for hydrocarbon resources.
Themes
Minerals
Australia and the north is a land rich in mineral resources. These resources have supported Australia's resilient economy for the last century, but over the last decade resource discovery has not kept pace with extraction and our share of international exploration expenditure has been in decline.
Energy
Australia is a vast continent which is largely under-explored in many regions. Large areas have poorly distributed data; some areas are completely untested for their resource potential. In addition, a large amount of onshore data is old and of poor quality.
Groundwater
Australia is the driest inhabited continent and the highest per capita user of water. As such, the Groundwater Sector plays a critical role in national water security. Groundwater represents 17 per cent of available fresh water within Australia and is essential for providing increased supply during periods of drought for agriculture and community consumption in many parts of the country.