Uranium in the Frome Embayment: Recent results from Geoscience Australia's Onshore Energy Security Program

Australian Phanerozoic basins have been under-explored for uranium. As a result, Geoscience Australia has been conducting research into uranium systems in the Frome Embayment, with the aim of developing a series of models and exploration techniques to assist uranium exploration in other basins.


The transport and depositional mechanisms are relatively well understood for sandstone-hosted uranium deposits; uranium is transported by oxidised meteoric fluids and precipitated by either an in situ reductant or by mixing with a reduced fluid. Using the concept that an oxidised fluid will progressively oxidise the rock that it passes through and, in turn the fluid will be reduced by wall rock interactions, potentially we can use drillhole logs to identify and map the redox state of the rocks and hence identify depositional sites.


A pilot study was undertaken to determine whether the open file geological logs could be used to map the redox state. A list of oxidised and reduced keywords was identified from the logs. Logs were digitised and oxidised words were given a value of one and reduced words given a value of negative one. Where there was combination of oxidised and reduced words, zero was used to designate the intermediate redox state. Where redox state could not be determined from the logs, a null data value was used. The redox values were imported into gOcad and gridded using DSI and IDW for comparison purposes.


The technique identified north-south trending features in the Namba Formation interpreted to be previously unmapped paleochannels. This technique of mapping redox conditions of sediments using open file drilling reports is able to be applied in other basin settings, assisting in the targeting of sandstone-hosted uranium systems.

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Identification info

Date (Publication)
2010-01-01T00:00:00
Citation identifier
Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/71025

Cited responsible party
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Author

van der Wielen, S.E.

 1
Author

Britt, A.

 2
Author

Bastrakov, E.N.

 3
Author

Cross, A.

 4
Author

Jaireth, S.

 5
Author

Le Gleuher, M.

 6
Author

Schofield, A.

 7
Author

Skirrow, R.G.

 8
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MNHD
Owner

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Custodian

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

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Topic category
  • Geoscientific information

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W


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Unknown

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Title

Product data repository: Various Formats

Website

Data Store directory containing the digital product files

Data Store directory containing one or more files, possibly in a variety of formats, accessible to Geoscience Australia staff only for internal purposes

Keywords

  • PowerPoint

Theme

  • 3D model

Theme

  • depositional mechanisms

Theme

  • geoscience

Keywords

  • AU-SA

Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)

  • Earth Sciences

Keywords

  • Published_External

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence

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CC-BY

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4.0

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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

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License
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License

Resource constraints

Title

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem

Edition date
2018-11-01T00:00:00
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https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

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Unclassified
Language
English
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UTF8

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Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

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OnLine resource

Download the file (pdf)

Download the file (pdf)

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  • pdf

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Non geographic dataset
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PowerPoint

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Metadata constraints

Title

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem

Edition date
2018-11-01T00:00:00
Website

https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Classification
Unclassified

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urn:uuid/a05f7892-f9d6-7506-e044-00144fdd4fa6

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GeoNetwork UUID

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English
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UTF8
Contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
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Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

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Non geographic dataset
Name

nonGeographicDataset

Alternative metadata reference

Title

Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with

uuid

Citation identifier
eCatId/71025

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https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/a05f7892-f9d6-7506-e044-00144fdd4fa6

Date info (Revision)
2018-04-20T06:16:36
Date info (Creation)
2010-09-17T00:00:00

Metadata standard

Title

AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115-1:2014

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115-3

Title

Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014

Edition

Version 2.0, September 2018

Citation identifier
https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551

 
 

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Keywords

3D model depositional mechanisms geoscience

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