The Officer Basin in South Australia and Western Australia is the focus of a regional stratigraphic study being undertaken by the Exploring for the Future (EFTF) program, an Australian Government initiative dedicated to increasing investment in resource exploration in Australia. This data release provides data from new digital photography, X-ray Computerised Tomography (XCT) scanning, unconfined compressive strength (UCS) and tensile strength, laboratory ultrasonic testing, and gas porosity and permeability experiments for 41 samples from five legacy stratigraphic and petroleum exploration boreholes drilled within the Officer Basin. Additional low permeability tests were undertaken on select samples that were identified as being ultra-tight (permeability <1 µD). These samples were analysed at CSIRO Geomechanics and Geophysics Laboratory in Perth during April to June 2021.

<div>Strontium isotopes (87Sr/86Sr) are useful in the earth sciences (e.g. recognising geological provinces, studying geological processes) as well in archaeological (e.g. informing on past human migrations), palaeontological/ecological (e.g. investigating extinct and extant taxa’s dietary range and migrations) and forensic (e.g. validating the origin of drinks and foodstuffs) sciences. Recently, Geoscience Australia and the University of Wollongong have teamed up to determine 87Sr/86Sr ratios in fluvial sediments selected mostly from the low-density National Geochemical Survey of Australia (www.ga.gov.au/ngsa), with a few additional Northern Australia Geochemical Survey infill samples. The present study targeted the northern parts of Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland in Australia, north of 21.5 °S. The samples were taken mostly from a depth of ~60-80 cm depth in floodplain deposits at or near the outlet of large catchments (drainage basins). A coarse grain-size fraction (&lt;2 mm) was air-dried, sieved, milled then digested (hydrofluoric acid + nitric acid followed by aqua regia) to release total strontium. Preliminary results demonstrate a wide range of strontium isotopic values (0.7048 &lt; 87Sr/86Sr &lt; 1.0330) over the survey area, reflecting a large diversity of source rock lithologies, geological processes and bedrock ages. Spatial distribution of 87Sr/86Sr shows coherent (multi-point anomalies and smooth gradients), large-scale (&gt;100 km) patterns that appears to be consistent, in many places, with surface geology, regolith/soil type and/or nearby outcropping bedrock. For instance, the extensive black clay soils of the Barkly Tableland define a &gt;500 km-long northwest-southeast-trending low anomaly (87Sr/86Sr &lt; 0.7182). Where carbonate or mafic igneous rocks dominate, a low to moderate strontium isotope signature is observed. In proximity to the outcropping Proterozoic metamorphic provinces of the Tennant, McArthur, Murphy and Mount Isa geological regions, conversely, high 87Sr/86Sr values (&gt; 0.7655) are observed. A potential link between mineralisation and elevated 87Sr/86Sr values in these regions needs to be investigated in greater detail. Our results to-date indicate that incorporating soil/regolith strontium isotopes in regional, exploratory geoscience investigations can help identify basement rock types under (shallow) cover, constrain surface processes (e.g. weathering, dispersion), and, potentially, recognise components of mineral systems. Furthermore, the resulting strontium isoscape and model derived therefrom can also be utilised in archaeological, paleontological and ecological studies that aim to investigate past and modern animal (including humans) dietary habits and migrations. &nbsp;The new spatial dataset is publicly available through the Geoscience Australia portal https://portal.ga.gov.au/.</div>

<div>The National Geochemical Survey of Australia (NGSA) is Australia’s only internally consistent, continental-scale geochemical atlas and dataset. The present dataset contains additional mineralogical data obtained on NGSA samples selected from the Barkly-Isa-Georgetown (BIG) region of northeastern Australia for the second partial data release of the Heavy Mineral Map of Australia (HMMA) project. The HMMA project, a collaborative project between Geoscience Australia and Curtin University underpinned by a pilot project establishing its feasibility, is part of the Australian Government-funded Exploring for the Future (EFTF) program.</div><div>One-hundred and eighty eight NGSA sediment samples were selected from the HMMA project within the EFTF’s BIG polygon plus an approximately one-degree buffer. The samples were taken on average from 60 to 80 cm depth in floodplain landforms, dried and sieved to a 75-430 µm grainsize fraction, and the contained heavy minerals (HMs; i.e., those with a specific gravity > 2.9 g/cm3) were separated by dense fluids and mounted on cylindrical epoxy mounts. After polishing and carbon-coating, the mounts were subjected to automated mineralogical analysis on a TESCAN® Integrated Mineral Analyzer (TIMA). Using scanning electron microscopy and backscatter electron imaging integrated with energy dispersive X-ray analysis, the TIMA identified 151 different HMs in the BIG area. The dataset, consisting of over 18 million individual mineral grains, was quality controlled and validated by an expert team. The data released here can be visualised, explored and downloaded using an online, bespoke mineral network analysis (MNA) tool built on a cloud-based platform. Preliminary analysis suggests that copper minerals cuprite and chalcopyrite may be indicative of base-metal/copper mineralisation in the area. Accompanying this report are two data files of TIMA results, and a minerals vocabulary file. </div><div>When completed in 2023, it is hoped the HMMA project will positively impact mineral exploration and prospectivity modelling around Australia, as well as have other applications in earth and environmental sciences.</div>

A comprehensive compilation of rock, regolith and groundwater geochemistry across the Curnamona Province and overlying basins. This product is part of the Curnamona Geochemistry module of GA's Exploring for the Future program, which is seeking to understand geochemical baselines within the Curnamona Province to support mineral exploration under cover. Data is sourced from GA, CSIRO and state databases, and run through a quality control process to address common database issues (such as unit errors). The data has been separated by sample type and migrated into a standard data structure to make the data internally consistent. A central source for cleaned geochemical data in the same data format is a valuable resource for further research and exploration in the region.

Survey Name: East Tasmania Datasets Acquired: Magnetics, Radiometrics and Elevation Geoscience Australia Project Number: P5020 Acquisition Start Date: 20/03/2022 Acquisition End Date: 23/06/2022 Flight line spacing: 200 m Flight line direction: East-West (090-270) Total distance flown: 57,709 line-km's Nominal terrain clearance: 80 m Data Acquisition: Magspec Airborne Surveys Pty Ltd Project Management: Geoscience Australia Quality Control: Geoscience Australia Dataset Ownership: Geoscience Australia and Mineral Resources Tasmania Datum: Geocentric Datum of Australia 2020 (GDA2020) Projection: Map Grid of Australia 55 (MGA55) Included in this release: 1. Point-located Data - ASCII-column (.dat) or NetCDF (.nc) format. • Magnetic diurnal; • Magnetics raw-edited; • Magnetics reduced; • Radiometrics raw-edited; • Radiometrics reduced. 2. Gridded data - ERMapper (.ers) format. • Total magnetic intensity (TMI); • TMI reduced to pole (RTP); • TMI RTP with first vertical derivative (1VD) applied; • Dose rate (with NASVD and standard processing); • Potassium concentration (with NASVD, standard processing); • Thorium concentration (with NASVD, standard processing); • Uranium concentration (with NASVD, standard processing); • Radar-derived digital elevation model (geoidal). 3. Reports. • Calibration report; • Operations and processing summary report. © Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia) and Mineral Resources Tasmania, Government of Tasmania 2022. With the exception of the Commonwealth Coat of Arms and where otherwise noted, this product is provided under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode).

<div>This study was commissioned by Geoscience Australia (GA) to produce a report on methane adsorption and desorption of select samples from the deep stratigraphic drill hole NDI Carrara 1, located in the Proterozoic Carrara Sub-basin in the Northern Territory. Plugs were taken from depths of interest and analysed via adsorption and desorption isotherm testing at the CSIRO laboratories in Clayton, Victoria. </div>

Exploring for the Future (EFTF) is an Australian Government program led by Geoscience Australia, in partnership with state and Northern Territory governments. The first phase of the EFTF program (2016-2020) aimed to drive industry investment in resource exploration in frontier regions of northern Australia by providing new precompetitive data and information about their energy, mineral and groundwater resource potential. One of the key discoveries of the first phase of the Exploring for the Future program was the identification of a large sedimentary depocentre in the South Nicholson region, an underexplored area straddling north-eastern Northern Territory and north-western Queensland. This depocentre, up to 8 km deep, was termed the ‘Carrara Sub-basin’ by Geoscience Australia. It is interpreted to contain thick sequences of Proterozoic rocks, broadly equivalent to rocks of the greater McArthur Basin (Northern Territory) and northern Lawn Hill Platform and Mount Isa Province (Queensland), known to be highly prospective for sediment-hosted base metals and unconventional hydrocarbons. In order to gain insights into the resource potential of the Carrara Sub-basin, the South Nicholson National Drilling Initiative (NDI) Carrara 1 stratigraphic drillhole was completed in late 2020, as a collaboration between Geoscience Australia, the Northern Territory Geological Survey (NTGS) and the MinEx CRC . NDI Carrara 1 is the first drillhole to intersect the, as yet, undifferentiated Proterozoic rocks of the Carrara Sub-Basin. NDI Carrara 1 is located on the western flanks of the Carrara Sub-basin on the South Nicholson Seismic line (17GA-SN1), reaching a total depth of 1751 mGL, intersecting ca. 630 m of Cambrian Georgina Basin overlying ca. 1100 m of Proterozoic carbonates, black shales and minor siliciclastics . Geoscience Australia is undertaking a range of investigations on the lithology, stratigraphy and geotechnical properties of NDI Carrara 1 based on wireline data, as well as undertaking a range of analyses of over 400 physical samples recovered through the entire core. This report presents new data from bulk density measurements carried out on selected rock samples as part of this comprehensive analytical program.

Explore important concepts about groundwater using this comprehensive teaching resource. This mini unit includes case studies of Australian groundwater topics, First Nations Australian perspectives about water use and groundwater are also included. This mini unit included four files - the guide, 2 x student activities and a kml file. The guide includes educator tips as well as answers to the student activities. Suitable for upper primary to lower secondary students.

<div>The mineral potential toolkit (aka minpot-toolkit) provides tools to facilitate mineral potential analysis, from spatial associations to feature engineering and fully integrated mineral potential mapping.</div>

<div><strong>Conclusions</strong>&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>The NW NT Seismic Survey (L214) was designed to image the underexplored Proterozoic Birrindudu Basin and adjacent regions, including the highly prospective Tanami region. In an area of very limited seismic coverage, the acquisition of ~900km of deep crustal seismic data has vastly improved the seismic coverage through this region. &nbsp;The new dataset will be available as both raw and processed data files from the Geoscience Australia website in the future.</div><div><br></div>Abstract presented at the 2024 Annual Geoscience Exploration Seminar (AGES)