Publicly available groundwater data have been compiled to provide a common information base to inform environmental, resource development and regulatory decisions in the Cooper Basin region. This web service summarises salinity, water levels, resource size, potential aquifer yield and surface water–groundwater interactions for the Lake Eyre Basin located within the Cooper Basin region.

Publicly available groundwater data have been compiled to provide a common information base to inform environmental, resource development and regulatory decisions in the Adavale Basin region. This data guide gives examples of how these data can be used. The data package included with this data guide captures existing knowledge of Lake Eyre Basin aquifers in the Adavale Basin region and their properties, including salinity, water levels, resource size, potential aquifer yield and surface water interactions. The methods to derive these data for the Lake Eyre Basin aquifer in the Adavale Basin region are outlined in the associated metadata files. These are described in groundwater conceptual models (Gouramanis et al., 2023). The Lake Eyre Basin overlying the Adavale Basin includes one broadly defined aquifer: Cenozoic hydrostratigraphic unit (Cenozoic aquifer). Compiled data are assigned to these intervals and used to characterise groundwater systems at the basin scale. The data are compiled for a point-in-time to inform decisions on potential resource developments in the Basin. The available historical groundwater data can be used to assess the potential effects on groundwater. The data can also be used for other purposes, such as exploring unallocated groundwater resource potential. Data to January 2022 are used for this compilation.

Publicly available groundwater data have been compiled to provide a common information base to inform environmental, resource development and regulatory decisions in the Galilee Basin region. This web service summarises salinity, water levels, resource size, potential aquifer yield and surface water–groundwater interactions for the Lake Eyre Basin located within the Galilee Basin region.

Publicly available groundwater data have been compiled to provide a common information base to inform environmental, resource development and regulatory decisions in the Cooper Basin region. This web service summarises salinity, water levels, resource size, potential aquifer yield and surface water–groundwater interactions for the Lake Eyre Basin located within the Cooper Basin region.

This was the fourth of five presentations held on 31 July 2023 as part of the National Groundwater Systems Workshop - Detailed Groundwater Science Inventory Geology, hydrogeology and groundwater systems in the Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre Basin.

This data package, completed as part of Geoscience Australia’s National Groundwater Systems (NGS) Project, presents results of the second iteration of the 3D Great Artesian Basin (GAB) and Lake Eyre Basin (LEB) (Figure 1) geological and hydrogeological models (Vizy & Rollet, 2023) populated with volume of shale (Vshale) values calculated on 2,310 wells in the Surat, Eromanga, Carpentaria and Lake Eyre basins (Norton & Rollet, 2023). This provides a refined architecture of aquifer and aquitard geometry that can be used as a proxy for internal, lateral, and vertical, variability of rock properties within each of the 18 GAB-LEB hydrogeological units (Figure 2). These data compilations and information are brought to a common national standard to help improve hydrogeological conceptualisation of groundwater systems across multiple jurisdictions. This information will assist water managers to support responsible groundwater management and secure groundwater into the future. This 3D Vshale model of the GAB provides a common framework for further data integration with other disciplines, industry, academics and the public and helps assess the impact of water use and climate change. It aids in mapping current groundwater knowledge at a GAB-wide scale and identifying critical groundwater areas for long-term monitoring. The NGS project is part of the Exploring for the Future (EFTF) program—an eight-year, $225 million Australian Government funded geoscience data and precompetitive information acquisition program. The program seeks to inform decision-making by government, community, and industry on the sustainable development of Australia's mineral, energy, and groundwater resources, including those to support the effective long-term management of GAB water resources. This work builds on the first iteration completed as part of the Great Artesian Basin Groundwater project (Vizy & Rollet, 2022; Rollet et al., 2022), and infills previous data and knowledge gaps in the GAB and LEB with additional borehole, airborne electromagnetic and seismic interpretation. The Vshale values calculated on additional wells in the southern Surat and southern Eromanga basins and in the whole of Carpentaria and Lake Eyre basins provide higher resolution facies variability estimates from the distribution of generalised sand-shale ratio across the 18 GAB-LEB hydrogeological units. The data reveals a complex mixture of sedimentary environments in the GAB, and highlights sand body development and hydraulic characteristics within aquifers and aquitards. Understanding the regional extents of these sand-rich areas provides insights into potential preferential flow paths, within and between the GAB and LEB, and aquifer compartmentalisation. However, there are limitations that require further study, including data gaps and the need to integrate petrophysics and hydrogeological data. Incorporating major faults and other structures would also enhance our understanding of fluid flow pathways. The revised Vshale model, incorporating additional boreholes to a total of 2,310 boreholes, contributes to our understanding of groundwater flow and connectivity in the region, from the recharge beds to discharge at springs, and Groundwater Dependant Ecosystems (GDEs). It also facilitates interbasinal connectivity analysis. This 3D Vshale model offers a consistent framework for integrating data from various sources, allowing for the assessment of water use impacts and climate change at different scales. It can be used to map groundwater knowledge across the GAB and identify areas that require long-term monitoring. Additionally, the distribution of boreholes with gamma ray logs used for the Vshale work in each GAB and LEB units (Norton & Rollet, 2022; 2023) is used to highlight areas where additional data acquisition or interpretation is needed in data-poor areas within the GAB and LEB units. The second iteration of surfaces with additional Vshale calculation data points provides more confidence in the distribution of sand bodies at the whole GAB scale. The current model highlights that the main Precipice, Hutton, Adori-Springbok and Cadna-owie‒Hooray aquifers are relatively well connected within their respective extents, particularly the Precipice and Hutton Sandstone aquifers and equivalents. The Bungil Formation, the Mooga Sandstone and the Gubberamunda Sandstone are partial and regional aquifers, which are restricted to the Surat Basin. These are time equivalents to the Cadna-owie–Hooray major aquifer system that extends across the Eromanga Basin, as well as the Gilbert River Formation and Eulo Queen Group which are important aquifers onshore in the Carpentaria Basin. The current iteration of the Vshale model confirms that the Cadna-owie–Hooray and time equivalent units form a major aquifer system that spreads across the whole GAB. It consists of sand bodies within multiple channel belts that have varying degrees of connectivity' i.e. being a channelised system some of the sands will be encased within overbank deposits and isolated, while others will be stacked, cross-cutting systems that provide vertical connectivity. The channelised systemtransitions vertically and laterally into a shallow marine environment (Rollet et al., 2022). Sand-rich areas are also mapped within the main Poolowanna, Brikhead-Walloon and Westbourne interbasinal aquitards, as well as the regional Rolling Downs aquitard that may provide some potential pathways for upward leakage of groundwater to the shallow Winton-Mackunda aquifer and overlying Lake Eyre Basin. Further integration with hydrochemical data may help groundtruth some of these observations. This metadata document is associated with a data package including: • Seventeen surfaces with Vshale property (Table 1), • Seventeen surfaces with less than 40% Vshale property (Table 2), • Twenty isochore with average Vshale property (Table 3), • Twenty isochore with less than 40% Vshale property (Table 4), • Sixteen Average Vshale intersections of less than 40% Vshale property delineating potential connectivity between isochore (Table 5), • Sixteen Average Vshale intersections of less than 40% Vshale property delineating potential connectivity with isochore above and below (Table 6), • Seventeen upscaled Vshale log intersection locations (Table 7), • Six regional sections showing geology and Vshale property (Table 8), • Three datasets with location of boreholes, sections, and area of interest (Table 9).

<div><strong>Output Type: </strong>Exploring for the Future Extended Abstract</div><div><br></div><div><strong>Short Abstract: </strong>Groundwater geochemistry is an important and often under-appreciated medium to understand geology below surface and is a valuable tool as part of a regional mineral exploration program. This study presents an assessment of hydrogeochemical results from the Curnamona and Mundi region with respect to their insights into mineral prospectivity and characterisation of groundwater baselines. The work is a collaboration with the Mineral Exploration Cooperative Research Centre (MinEx CRC), the Geological Survey of New South Wales and the Geological Survey of South Australia as part of Geoscience Australia’s Exploring for the Future program. It combines new and legacy groundwater chemistry from 297 samples to identify multiple elevated multi-element anomalies (Ag, Pb, Cd) and signatures of sulfide mineralisation (d34S and sulfur excess), which are interpreted as potential features from subsurface Broken Hill Type mineralisation (Pb-Zn-Ag). Additional multi-element anomalies (Cu, Mo, Co, Au) may be attributable to Cu-Au, Cu-Mo and Au mineralisation. We then apply hierarchical cluster analysis to understand sample hydrostratigraphy and characterise robust hydrogeochemical baselines for the major aquifer systems in the region. This reveals that the majority of anomalies are restricted to groundwaters derived from basement fractured rock aquifer systems, with a couple anomalies observed in the Lake Eyre Basin cover, which helps narrow the search-space for future groundwater-based mineral exploration in this region (to prioritise these aquifers and anomalies). In addition, we demonstrate the capability of these local hydrogeochemical baselines to support more sensitive resolution of hydrogeochemical anomalies relating to mineralisation, as well as reveal hydrogeological processes such as mixing.</div><div><br></div><div><strong>Citation: </strong>Reid, N., Schroder, I., Thorne, R., Folkes, C., Hore, S., Eastlake, M., Petts, A., Evans, T., Fabris, A., Pinchand, T., Henne A., & Palombi, B.R., 2024. Hydrogeochemistry of the Curnamona and Mundi region. In: Czarnota, K. (ed.) Exploring for the Future: Extended Abstracts. Geoscience Australia, Canberra. https://doi.org/10.26186/149509</div>

<div>As part of Geoscience Australia’s Exploring for the Future program, the Curnamona Geochemistry project is producing a comprehensive compilation of geochemical data from the Broken Hill region, encompassing rock, regolith and groundwater. As part of these efforts, geochemical data has been compiled, cleaned and standardised to enable more seamless interpretation and exploration of geochemical anomalies. This project improves the quality, accessibility and volume of geochemical data across the Curnamona region and supports our ongoing efforts to define regional geochemical baselines.</div> This presentation was given to the 2022 Geological Survey of South Australia (GSSA) Discovery Day 1 December (https://www.energymining.sa.gov.au/home/events-and-initiatives/discovery-day)

<div>Cooper Creek is a dryland river system that extends from the western Great Dividing Range in Central Queensland to Lake Eyre in South Australia. The middle course of the Cooper Creek is characterised by anabranching river channels across a wide floodplain that flow intermittently due to monsoonal flooding event higher in the catchment. As floodwaters recede, freshwater stagnates within numerous deeper segments of river channels forming ‘waterholes’ which support ecosystems with significant ecological and cultural value. However, there is little evidence that shallow groundwater discharges into these surface water bodies and the link between surface water and groundwater is not well understood. This study aims to demonstrate how airborne electromagnetics (AEM) and other geoscientific data can be integrated to identify recharge within shallow saline groundwater systems, which are so common in arid inland Australia.</div><div> The regional water table underneath the floodplain is shallow (<10m) and highly saline (>38,000 TDS), with a chemical signature suggesting salts were concentrated by evapotranspiration. Surface swelling clays likely limits the amount of recharge that occurs through the floodplain itself. However, a detailed study by Cendón et al (2010) found that during high flow events, floodwater scoured the base of the waterholes allowing freshwater to recharges into the shallow groundwater system forming chemically distinct freshwater lenses.</div><div> AEM is a geophysical technique capable of estimating bulk conductivity for the top few hundred metres of the subsurface. Part of the AusAEM Eastern Resource Corridor survey (Ley-Cooper 2021) crossed the Cooper Creek floodplain with a 20km line spacing. The bulk conductivity models delivered as part of this survey resolved the top of the saline water table regionally. In several locations, we identified resistive lenses sitting on the shallow water table which coincide with river channels that are frequently inundated.</div><div><br></div><div>Cendón, D.I., Larsen, J.R., Jones, B.G., Nanson, G.C., Rickleman, D., Hankin, S.I., Pueyo, J.J. and Maroulis, J., 2010. Freshwater recharge into a shallow saline groundwater system, Cooper Creek floodplain, Queensland, Australia.&nbsp;<em>Journal of Hydrology</em>,&nbsp;<em>392</em>(3-4), pp.150-163.</div><div>LeyCooper, Y. 2021. Exploring for the Future AusAEM Eastern Resources Corridor: 2021 Airborne Electromagnetic Survey TEMPEST® airborne electromagnetic data and GALEI inversion conductivity estimates. Geoscience Australia, Canberra.</div> This Abstract was submitted/presented to the 2022 Australasian Groundwater Conference 21-23 November (https://www.aig.org.au/events/australasian-groundwater-conference-2022/)

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.