<div>A PowerPoint presentation given by Chief of Minerals, Energy and Groundwater Division Dr Andrew Heap at NT Resources Week 2023. </div><div><br></div><div>This presentation had the theme of 'Precompetitive geoscience - Uncovering our critical minerals potential.'</div>

<div>The Exploring for the Future program, led by Geoscience Australia, was a $225 million Australian Government investment over 8 years, focused on revealing Australia’s mineral, energy, and groundwater potential by characterising geology.&nbsp;&nbsp;This report provides an overview of activities, results, achievements and impacts from the Exploring for the Future program, with a particular focus on the last four years (2020-2024). &nbsp;</div>

<div>The Woomera Prohibited Area coexistence framework, underpinned by the Woomera Prohibited Area Rule 2014, aims to balance the priorities of the Australian Defence Force with the priorities of non-defence users. in 2010, and again in 2018, the Australian Government undertook reviews of the Woomera Prohibited Area in order to assess the mineral and petroleum resources in the area.  </div><div><br></div><div>The most recent report, <em>Woomera Prohibited Area Resource Prospectivity and Economic Assessment (October 2023)</em>, was commissioned by the South Australian Department for Energy and Mining and prepared by Scyne Advisory in order to provide a resource prospectivity analysis and an economic assessment based on modelled resource prospectivity.  </div><div><br></div><div>This professional opinion is an evaluation of the validity of the minerals, energy and groundwater assessment methodology of the 2023 Scyne Advisory report. Access to this document must be sought from: • Branch Head, Mineral Systems Branch • Branch Head, Advice Investment Attraction and Analysis • Chief of Division, Minerals Energy and Groundwater </div>

<div>The 2024 Critical Minerals in Ores (CMiO) Database factsheet contains information about the purpose of the CMiO, provides links to access the CMiO, two case studies on critical mineral abundance in deposits and a link to the user guide and submission template to provide data to the CMiO. This factsheet is an is an updated version of the Kelley 2020 USGS factsheet (https://doi.org/10.3133/fs20203035). The CMiO was produced through the Critical Minerals Mapping Initiative (CMMI), a collaboration between Geoscience Australia (GA), the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) and the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in 2021 and is periodically updated. Note: A copy of the updated factsheet will not be available until the end of 2024.

<div>The Canning Basin is a prospective hydrocarbon frontier basin and is unusual for having limited offshore seismic and well data in comparison with its onshore extent. In this study, seismic mapping was conducted to better resolve the continuity of 13 key stratigraphic units from onshore to offshore to delineate prospective offshore hydrocarbon-bearing units, and better understand the distribution of mafic igneous units that can compartmentalise migration pathways and influence heat flow. The offshore Canning Basin strata are poorly constrained in six wells with limited seismic coverage; hence data availability was bolstered by integrating data from the onshore portion of the basin and adjacent basins into a single 3D seismic stratigraphic model. This model integrates over 10 000 km of historical 2D seismic data and 23 exploration wells to allow mapping of key stratal surfaces. Mapped seismic horizons were used to construct isochores and regional cross-sections. Seven of the 13 units were mapped offshore for the first time, revealing that the onshore and offshore stratigraphy are similar, albeit with some minor differences, and mafic igneous units are more interconnected than previously documented whereby they may constitute a mafic magmatic province. These basin-scale maps provide a framework for future research and resource exploration in the Canning Basin. To better understand the basin’s geological evolution, tectonic history and petroleum prospectivity, additional well data are needed in the offshore Canning Basin where Ordovician strata have yet to be sampled.</div><div><br></div><div>C. T. G. Yule, J. Daniell, D. S. Edwards, N. Rollet & E. M. Roberts&nbsp;(2023).&nbsp;Reconciling the onshore/offshore stratigraphy of the Canning Basin and implications for petroleum prospectivity,&nbsp;Australian Journal of Earth Sciences,&nbsp;DOI:&nbsp;10.1080/08120099.2023.2194945</div> Appeared in Australian Journal of Earth Sciences Pages 691-715, Volume 70, 2023 - Issue 5.

<div>Geoscience Australia’s Onshore Basin Inventories project delivers a single point of reference and creates a standardised national basin inventory that provides a whole-of-basin catalogue of geology, petroleum systems, exploration status and data coverage of hydrocarbon-prone onshore Australian sedimentary basins. In addition to summarising the current state of knowledge within each basin, the onshore basin inventory reports identify critical science questions and key exploration uncertainties that may help inform future work program planning and decision making for both government and industry. Volume 1 of the inventory covers the McArthur, South Nicholson, Georgina, Wiso, Amadeus, Warburton, Cooper and Galilee basins and Volume 2 expands this list to include the Officer, Perth and onshore Canning basins. Under Geoscience Australia’s Exploring for the Future (EFTF) program, several new onshore basin inventory reports are being delivered. Upcoming releases include the Adavale Basin of southern Queensland, and a compilation report addressing Australia’s poorly understood Mesoproterozoic basins. These are supported by value-add products that address identified data gaps and evolve regional understanding of basin evolution and prospectivity, including petroleum systems modelling, seismic reprocessing and regional geochemical studies. The Onshore Basin Inventories project continues to provide scientific and strategic direction for pre-competitive data acquisition under the EFTF work program, guiding program planning and shaping post-acquisition analysis programs.</div>

High-purity quartz (HPQ) is the only naturally occurring and economically viable source for the production of silicon. Silicon is a critical mineral, and a key component in modern technologies such as semiconductors and photovoltaic cells. Critical minerals support the move towards a greater reliance on electrification, renewable energy sources and economic security. The global transition to net zero carbon emissions means there is a growing need for new discoveries of HPQ to supply the silicon production chain. HPQ deposits are identified in a multitude of geological settings, including pegmatites, hydrothermal veins, sedimentary accumulations and quartzite; however, deposits of sufficient volume and quality are rare. Quartz is abundant throughout Australia, but the exploration and discovery of HPQ occurrences are notably under-reported, making assessment of the HPQ potential in Australia extremely difficult. This paper presents a much-needed summary of the state of the HPQ industry, exploration and deposit styles in Australia. KEY POINTS: 1. High-purity quartz (HPQ) is a key material for the manufacture of photovoltaic cells, semiconductors and other high-technology applications. 2. HPQ can be recovered from a variety of different source rocks in a range of geological settings. 3. Currently, the HPQ industry in Australia is under-utilised for high-technology applications, and historical exploration and mining records are under-reported and opaque. 4. This review presents an outline of the characteristics, processing requirements and end uses of HPQ, and a summary of the operations, deposits, exploration targets and known occurrences of HPQ in Australia. <b>Citation:</b> Jennings, A., Senior, A., Guerin, K., Main, P., & Walsh, J. (2024). A review of high-purity quartz for silicon production in Australia. <i>Australian Journal of Earth Sciences</i>, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/08120099.2024.2362296

<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>Geoscience Australia's geoscientific relational databases use look-up tables to describe the data stored within. These look-ups contain, but are not limited to, information about boreholes, field geology, inorganic and organic geochemistry, hydrochemistry, geophysics, rock properties, samples and other general geological terms. These terms have then been compiled into a vocabulary of terms for publication via GA's vocabulary service. Within this vocabulary, GA references where sourced terms are published in external vocabularies with a source vocabulary URI (Uniform Resource Identifier). </div><div><br></div><div>All vocabularies, collections of concepts within vocabularies and individual concepts are identified with URI persistent identifiers of the form:</div><div>http://pid.geoscience.gov.au/def/voc/ga/{VOCABULARY-KEY}/{COLLECTION-OR-CONCEPT-NAME}</div>

<div>This data package contains interpretations of airborne electromagnetic (AEM) conductivity sections in the Exploring for the Future (EFTF) program’s Eastern Resources Corridor (ERC) study area, in south eastern Australia. Conductivity sections from 3 AEM surveys were interpreted to provide a continuous interpretation across the study area – the EFTF AusAEM ERC (Ley-Cooper, 2021), the Frome Embayment TEMPEST (Costelloe et al., 2012) and the MinEx CRC Mundi (Brodie, 2021) AEM surveys. Selected lines from the Frome Embayment TEMPEST and MinEx CRC Mundi surveys were chosen for interpretation to align with the 20&nbsp;km line-spaced EFTF AusAEM ERC survey (Figure 1).</div><div>The aim of this study was to interpret the AEM conductivity sections to develop a regional understanding of the near-surface stratigraphy and structural architecture. To ensure that the interpretations took into account the local geological features, the AEM conductivity sections were integrated and interpreted with other geological and geophysical datasets, such as boreholes, potential fields, surface and basement geology maps, and seismic interpretations. This approach provides a near-surface fundamental regional geological framework to support more detailed investigations. </div><div>This study interpreted between the ground surface and 500&nbsp;m depth along almost 30,000 line kilometres of nominally 20&nbsp;km line-spaced AEM conductivity sections, across an area of approximately 550,000&nbsp;km2. These interpretations delineate the geo-electrical features that correspond to major chronostratigraphic boundaries, and capture detailed stratigraphic information associated with these boundaries. These interpretations produced approximately 170,000 depth estimate points or approximately 9,100 3D line segments, each attributed with high-quality geometric, stratigraphic, and ancillary data. The depth estimate points are formatted for compliance with Geoscience Australia’s (GA) Estimates of Geological and Geophysical Surfaces (EGGS) database, the national repository for standardised depth estimate points. </div><div>Results from these interpretations provided support to stratigraphic drillhole targeting, as part of the Delamerian Margins NSW National Drilling Initiative campaign, a collaboration between GA’s EFTF program, the MinEx CRC National Drilling Initiative and the Geological Survey of New South Wales. The interpretations have applications in a wide range of disciplines, such as mineral, energy and groundwater resource exploration, environmental management, subsurface mapping, tectonic evolution studies, and cover thickness, prospectivity, and economic modelling. It is anticipated that these interpretations will benefit government, industry and academia with interest in the geology of the ERC region.</div>