As part of its Energy Security Initiative, the Australian Government allocated Geoscience Australia $59 million in August 2006, to undertake a five-year Onshore Energy Security Program. This is designed to deliver precompetitive geoscience data and scientifically-based assessments to reduce the rick in exploration for onshore energy resources, including petroleum, uranium, thorium and geothermal energy. The work is being conducted in collaboration with the State and territory geological surveys and is scheduled for completion in June 2011.

Airborne Electromagnetic data are being acquired by Geoscience Australia in areas considered to have potential for uranium or thorium mineralisation under the Australian Government's Onshore Energy Security Program (OESP). The surveys have been managed and interpreted by Geoscience Australia's Airborne Electromagnetic Acquisition and Interpretation project. Three survey areas were recognised in the Pine Creek AEM survey area: Woolner Granite (TEMPEST), Rum Jungle (TEMPEST) and Kombolgie (VTEM). Industry paid for infill - all of this data has now been released to the public domain and is available at the GA website. In contrast to industry style deposit scale investigations, these surveys are designed to reveal new geological information at regional scale. The Pine Creek airborne electromagnetic data were acquired at line spacing's of between one and five kilometres, a total of 29 000 line km and covers an area of 73 000 km squared. The outcomes of the Pine Creek AEM survey include mapping of subsurface geological features that are associated with unconformity-related, sandstone-hosted and palaeovalley-hosted uranium mineralisation. The data are also capable of interpretation for other commodities including metals and potable water as well as for landscape evolution studies. The improved understanding of the regional geology resulting from the Pine Creek survey results will be of considerable benefit to mining and mineral exploration companies. This Data Package is for Archive to the internal area of the CDS and contains all data, grids, images, mxd, shape files, documentation, licenses, agreements, interpretations and scripts used to create the Pine Creek deliverables. At the projects completion (2012) all directories are required to be moved off the NAS. The reason to keep all the files is that more work is to be done on this data in the 2012-2015 period and these files may be needed in this future work.

Airborne electromagnetic (AEM) data are being acquired by Geoscience Australia (GA) under the Australian Government's Onshore Energy Security Program (OESP) in areas considered to have potential for uranium or thorium mineralisation. In contrast to deposit-scale investigations carried out by industry these surveys are designed to reveal new geological information at a regional scale. The Frome AEM survey shown in Figure 1 was flown by Fugro Airborne Surveys for GA, using the TEMPESTTM time-domain system. The survey was conducted with the aims of reducing exploration risk, stimulating exploration investment and enhancing prospectivity within the region primarily for uranium, but also for other commodities including copper, gold, silver, lead, zinc, iron ore and potable groundwater. The Frome AEM survey was primarily designed to be a regional mapping program for mapping surface and subsurface geological features that may be associated with sandstone-hosted uranium systems. The data are also capable of being interpreted for landscape evolution studies within the flanks of the tectonically active Curnamona Province and Flinders Ranges of South Australia. In this article we present an enhanced set of conductivity estimates which are now available from the GA website free of charge. These conductivity estimates reveal new geological information

This report documents the conceptual Managed Aquifer Recharge (MAR) and groundwater resource targets identified from initial analysis of airborne electromagnetics (AEM) data acquired during Phase 2 of the Broken Hill Managed Aquifer Recharge (BHMAR) Project (Lawrie, 2009; Lawrie et al., 2008a, 2009a, b; Figure 1). The BHMAR Phase 2 study builds on an earlier scoping study (Lewis et al., 2008) and Phase 1 technical risk assessment (Lawrie et al, 2009a, b), and is part of the Australian Government's plan to secure Broken Hill's water supply and allow for significant amounts of water currently stored at Menindee Lakes to be returned to the environment. The Australian Government has committed up to $400 million to the project, which is managed through the Australian Government Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts (DEWHA).

Airborne Electromagnetic data are being acquired by Geoscience Australia in areas considered to have potential for uranium or thorium mineralisation under the Australian Government's Onshore Energy Security Program (OESP). The surveys have been managed and interpreted by Geoscience Australia's Airborne Electromagnetic Acquisition and Interpretation project. In contrast to industry style deposit scale investigations, these surveys are designed to reveal new geological information at regional scale. The Paterson airborne electromagnetic data were acquired at line spacings of between one and six kilometres, a total of 28 200 line km and covers an area of 47 600 km². The outcomes of the Paterson AEM survey include mapping of subsurface geological features that are associated with unconformity-related, sandstone-hosted and palaeovalley-hosted uranium mineralisation. The data are also capable of interpretation for other commodities including metals and potable water as well as for landscape evolution studies. The improved understanding of the regional geology resulting from the Paterson survey results will be of considerable benefit to mining and mineral exploration companies. This Data Package is for Archive to the internal area of the CDS and contains all data, grids, images, mxd, shape files, documentation, licenses, agreements, interpretations and scripts used to create the Paterson deliverables. At the projects completion (2012) all directories are required to be moved off the NAS. The reason to keep all the files is that more work is to be done on this data in the 2012-2015 period and these files may be needed in this future work.

Short article describing detection of interpreted unconformity between Coolbro Sandstone and Rudall Complex rocks near the Kintyre uranium deposit, Western Australia

A brief summary fo the highlights of the Paterson AEM survey and planned future work of Geoscience Australia's Airborne EM Project.

Australia's ancient river networks are substantially obscured by dunefields. The depths of incision of the river valleys into bedrock, the nature of sedimentary infill, and the palaeoenvironmental and geomorphic evolution of these fluvial systems are little known for much of the continent. The fluvial systems are defunct and the valleys are now typically disconnected chains of salt lakes with the relict valleys governed by groundwater processes. The palaeovalley sediments represent important aquifers in widespread parts of the Australian semi-arid to arid zone. They commonly contain the only available water resources to support mining activities, remote Aboriginal communities, the pastoral industry, and groundwater-dependent ecosystems (GDEs). In Western Australia, investigations are underway in two regions to assess palaeovalleys and their groundwater resources: the Paterson Province in the Great Sandy Desert, and the Murchison Province of the Archean Yilgarn Craton. A variety of technologies have been applied to provide a regional context for more detailed analysis.

At present calcrete-hosted uranium deposits constitute only 1% of Australia's uranium resources. Most known deposits (nine out of eleven) are associated with Cenozoic drainage systems in the Yilgarn Craton, and similar drainage systems in the Gascoyne Province and Ngalia Basin. In the Paterson region calcrete-hosted uranium mineralisation has been reported only in the Lake Waukarlycarly area but no major deposit of this type has yet been found.

Airborne Electromagnetic data are being acquired by Geoscience Australia in areas considered to have potential for uranium or thorium mineralisation under the Australian Government's Onshore Energy Security Program (OESP). The surveys have been managed and interpreted by Geoscience Australia's Airborne Electromagnetic Acquisition and Interpretation project. In contrast to industry style deposit scale investigations, these surveys are designed to reveal new geological information at regional scale. The Frome Embayment AEM survey was acquired using the TEMPESTTM AEM system by Fugro Airborne Surveys under contract to GA. The survey covers a total of 32 300 line km and an area of 95 450 km2, the largest AEM survey by area ever flown in Australia. Phase-1 data, that is, contractor quality-controlled and quality-assessed data for the Frome survey, were released during March 2011. Phase-2 data, that is Geoscience Australia layered earth inversion (GA-LEI) data and derived products are included in this data release. The data and products described in this report are available from the GA AEM website, and are contained on the accompanying DVD.