The Bushfire CRC runs a Research Advisory Forum every 6 months for each project to report. This is the last RAF for teh FireDST project.

The Central Gawler Gold Province is poorly known and poorly explored, principally because of the extensive development of regolith. CRC LEME is collaborating with Geoscience Australia and the Minerals Resources Group in the South Australian Department of Primary Industry and Resources to reduce the risk attached to exploration through the regolith in this terrain. We have integrated the interpretation of geological, geophysical, and calcrete geochemical data at known prospects in order to develop a strategy for generating ranked drilling targets. This ranking strategy carries the assumption that Au anomalies in calcrete formed in in-situ regolith materials are associated with Au mineralisation at depth. However, this assumption ignores the possibility that Au is moving laterally through the regolith in groundwater. It has been established that groundwater is mobilising significant quantities of Au in areas of the central Gawler Craton. Au may be precipitated within the regolith when the chemical or physical conditions governing mobilisation change. This process could generate "false" Au anomalies. Our research suggests that regolith geochemistry (surface and sub-surface) should be interpreted against the groundwater chemistry and an understanding of groundwater flow paths. Whereas groundwater chemistry can only be established by assaying samples from drillholes, groundwater flow paths can be mapped using a combination of geology and geophysics. At prospect scale, these results can be used as vectors to primary mineralisation, thereby refining targeting strategies.

This paper was presented at the World Diamond Conference, Perth, 22-23 November 2004.

Australia's thorium resources currently amount to 452,000tonnes Th of which 364,000tonnes (80.5%) occur in heavy mineral sand deposits, 53,300tonnes (11.7%) in a vein type deposit at Nolans Bore in the Northern Territory and another 35,000tonnes (7.7%) are in an alkaline trachyte plug at Toongi in New South Wales. This distribution of thorium resources differs from the world wide distribution where 31.3% of the resources occur in carbonatites, 24.6% are in placers, 21.4% in vein type deposits and 18.4% in alkaline rocks. This variance is at least partly due to relatively more, although still inadequate, data on thorium resources being generated by the very active heavy mineral sand operations around Australia. Even where thorium analyses have been carried out for other types of deposits that host thorium, such results are not published since thorium is not considered to be economically important. All of Australia's thorium resources occur in multi-commodity deposits, dominantly the heavy mineral sands and in rare earth deposits where the extraction cost would be shared with if not totally supported by the other commodities in the deposit. Because there has been no large-scale demand for thorium, there has been little incentive for companies to assess the cost for the extraction of thorium resources. Hence there is insufficient information to determine how much of Australia's thorium resources are economic for purposes of electricity power generation in thorium nuclear reactors. Geoscience Australia is currently engaged in upgrading its database on thorium resources as part of the five-year Onshore Energy Security Program and Australia's figures on its thorium resources will be refined as a result of this work. Because of limited demand, there has been very little exploration for thorium in Australia. As part of its five year Onshore Energy Security Program, Geoscience Australia is in process of upgrading its continent wide airborne radiometric coverage and is conducting a low density geochemical sampling program across the continent. These programs will help to develop a better understanding of the geological and geochemical environment of thorium in Australia and provide basic pre-competitive data to reduce risk the level of risk for the mineral exploration industry. Assessment of thorium resources by the minerals industry in the future will depend upon the development of commercial-scale thorium nuclear reactors and the resulting demand for thorium resources.

Presented at the Evolution and metallogenesis of the North Australian Craton Conference, 20-22 June 2006, Alice Springs. Over a half (570) of the known uranium occurrences in Australia are located in the North Australian Craton and the overlying Ngalia, Amadeus, and McArthur River basins. These occurrences include 43 uranium deposits with recorded resources. The uranium occurrences and deposits show a general spatial relationship to uranium-enriched felsic igneous rocks. The total uranium resource (production + resources) of the North Australian Craton and the overlying basins amount to about 510,000 t U3O8. The bulk of these resources are accounted for by the following: unconformity type in the Pine Creek Orogen (~420,000 t U3O8), sandstone uranium (~36,000 t U3O8) in the McArthur, Amadeus and Ngalia Basins, metasomatite (~38,000 t U3O8) and metamorphic deposits of the Mt Isa Orogen, and calcrete deposits in Arunta. <p>Related product:<a href="https://www.ga.gov.au/products/servlet/controller?event=GEOCAT_DETAILS&amp;catno=64764">Evolution and metallogenesis of the North Australian Craton Conference Abstracts</p>

Pending

Introduction Our understanding of the geological history and resource potential of Australia has been underpinned by over half a century of surface geological mapping. A synthesis of this effort is captured in the 1:1 000 000 surface geology map of Australia (Raymond et al., 2012), which shows that ~80% of the bedrock geology of Australia is covered by a veneer of sediments and regolith. Now, the challenge is to continue to unravel the geological history and resource potential of Australia beneath this cover. With this goal in mind, Geoscience Australia (GA), in collaboration with state/territory geological surveys, is embarking on compiling a series of national solid geology maps based on time slices. These maps will be compiled at an optimal scale of 1:1,000,000 exploiting potential field datasets, radiometric coverages, seismic profiles, borehole data and regional solid geology compilations. In the interest of efficiency, solid geology compilations at scales between 1:500 0001:2 500 000 will be incorporated with minimum modification. The end product will be a series of national geology maps in chronostratigraphic order, including the 1:1 000 000 surface geology of Australia, pre-Cenozoic solid geology, and ultimately older time slices (to be determined). Current work Pre-Cenozoic Geology of South Australia, New South Walse and Victoria in conjunction with a program to construct a chronostratigraphic isopach map of the Murray Basin. Work also started to produce a Pre-Cenozoic Geology map of Northern Territory.

Presented at the Evolution and metallogenesis of the North Australian Craton Conference, 20-22 June 2006, Alice Springs. The Tanami seismic survey ran from May through July 2005 under the supervision of ANSIR (National Research Facility for Earth Sounding). The survey consisted of 720 line-km along four regional deep seismic traverses, 05GA-T1 through to 05GA-T4, aimed at providing orthogonal three-dimensional control on the regional fault geometry. Geoscience Australia processed the data in the 12 months following the survey, using the DISCO/FOCUS seismic processing package. Considerable effort was expended on the most critical aspects for improving the seismic reflection image, namely refraction statics correction, several passes of velocity analysis, and partial pre-stack followed by post stack migration of the data. Partial pre-stack migration (also known as dip moveout or DMO correction) was necessary for simultaneous imaging of horizontal and steeply dipping reflectors. <p>Related product:<a href="https://www.ga.gov.au/products/servlet/controller?event=GEOCAT_DETAILS&amp;catno=64764">Evolution and metallogenesis of the North Australian Craton Conference Abstracts</p>

Discusses: Current state of the Australian minerals sector Overview of advanced development projects Trends in mineral exploration and discovery Copper and uranium exploration prospects in Australia Government initiatives

The Browse Basin lies offshore from Western Australia's Kimberley region and hosts vast accumulations of natural gas, some of which are rich in condensate, making it Australia's next major liquefied natural gas (LNG) producing province on the North West Shelf. The Ichthys accumulation is estimated to host 12.8 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas and 527 million barrels (mmbbl) of condensate (condensate:gas ratio (CGR) 60 bbl/MMscf) representing the largest hydrocarbon accumulation with recoverable liquids found in Australia since the discovery of the Gippsland Basin and Barrow Island oil fields in the 1960s. Similar amounts of gas, albeit drier (CGR 2030 bbl/MMscf) are hosted within the Brecknock, Calliance and Torosa accumulations (cumulative 15.9 Tcf gas, 436 mmbbl condensate). Despite the extensive ongoing exploration activity and prior research interest [1, 2 and 3], the basin's petroleum systems (PS) have not been publically updated for a decade. Collating the existing molecular and isotopic datasets for the wet gases and associated hydrocarbon liquids, along with the biomarker and 13C/12C and D/H ratios of the n-alkanes for the crude oils, has enabled the origin and extent of the petroleum systems to be redefined. In doing so, it is apparent that the filling of the gas accumulations within the Caswell Sub-basin and along the Scott Reef-Brecknock trend is complex, with the component gases originating from multiple organic and inorganic sources. Differing degrees of biodegradation are observed in the Cornea and Gwydion oil and gas accumulations. Four preliminary petroleum systems are defined for known accumulations by their 13C n-alkane isotopic profiles (Figure 1). The PloverPlover PS is a basin-wide gas-prone system where the gas is reservoired within the Middle Jurassic Plover Formation (e.g. Brecknock-Torosa, Ichthys) and sourced from mixed terrestrial and marine organic matter deposited in fluvio-deltaic sediments. The Plover/VulcanVulcan PS occurs within the central Caswell Sub-basin at Ichthys and Prelude/Concerto and is a wet gas-prone system reservoired within the Upper Jurassic Brewster Member, upper Vulcan Formation. This PS has a more marine source affinity with the additional hydrocarbons probably being sourced from the lower Vulcan Formation. The Plover/VulcanPlover/Vulcan/Nome PS is a gas-prone system within the Heywood Graben. The complex reservoir at Crux is sourced from mixed terrestrial and marine organic matter deposited that may be sourced from within Jurassic sediments. The Echuca ShoalsHeywood PS is an oil- and gas-prone system (e.g. Caswell, Cornea and Gwydion) sourced by marine algae and bacterial remains within Lower Cretaceous sediments [2]. The oils and gases on the Yampi Shelf vary in their degree of biodegradation. Further work is in progress to confirm these petroleum systems and redefine their extent by correlating the wet gases and oils with their source rocks.