<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>Alkaline igneous and related rocks are recognised as a significant source of the critical minerals essential for Australia’s transition to net-zero. Understanding these small but economically significant group of poorly mapped rocks is essential for identifying their resource potential. The Australian Alkaline Rocks Atlas aims to capture all known occurrences of these volumetrically minor, but important, igneous rocks in a national compilation, to aid understanding of their composition, distribution and age at the continental scale. The Atlas, comprises five, stand-alone data packages covering the Archean, Proterozoic, Paleozoic, Mesozoic and Cenozoic eras. Each data package includes a GIS database and detailed accompanying report that informs alkaline rock nomenclature, classification procedures, individual units and their grouping into alkaline provinces based on common age, characteristics and inferred genesis. The Alkaline Rocks Atlas will form a foundation for more expansive research on related mineral systems and their corresponding economic potential being undertaken as part of the EFTF program. To illustrate the use of the Alkaline Rocks Atlas, a mineral potential assessment using a subset of the Atlas has been undertaken for carbonatite-related rare earth element mineral systems that aims to support mineral exploration and land-use decision making that aims to support mineral exploration and land-use decision making.</div>

<p>The Australian Lithospheric Architecture Magnetotelluric Project (AusLAMP) aims to collect long period magnetotelluric data on a half degree (~55 km) grid across the Australian continent. New datasets have been collected in Northern Australia, as part of Geoscience Australia’s Exploring for the Future (EFTF) program with in-kind contributions from the Northern Territory Geological Survey and the Queensland Geological Survey. <p>This release includes preliminary AusLAMP models in an under-explored region between Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory and Cloncurry in Queensland. Long period magnetotelluric data from 155 sites were used in this model. Magnetotelluric data acquisition in this region continues. The preliminary model results provide new insights to the lithospheric architecture and mineralisation in the region. There is a connection between conductive anomalies, large-scale lithospheric boundaries and the distribution of mineral deposits.

Geoscience Australia commissioned reprocessing of selected legacy 2D seismic data in the Officer Basin in South Australia as part of the Exploring for the Future (EFTF) program. Reprocessing of these data occurred between April 2021 and August 2021. This seismic data release package contains reprocessed data from five surveys acquired between 1966 and 1987. In total it contains approximately 1425 km of industry 2D reflection seismic data comprising of 25 lines from 5 separate vintages. The seismic surveys include the Serpentine Lakes Reconnaissance Survey, 1966; the Everard Survey, 1974; the Marla Bore Survey, 1984; the Ungoolya, Giles and Marla-Byilkaoora Surveys, 1985; and the Amoco Officer Basin Survey, 1987 and cover areas within the Officer Basin in South Australia. The objective of the seismic reprocessing was to produce processed 2D land seismic reflection datasets using the latest processing techniques to improve continuity and data quality over legacy processing. In particular, the purpose of the reprocessing was to image the structure and stratigraphic architecture of the Neoproterozoic to Paleozoic Officer Basin in this area. All vintages except the 1966 Serpentine lakes survey were processed to Pre-stack Time Migration as well as Post-Stack Time Migration. The 1966 Serpentine Lakes Survey was processed only to Post-Stack Time Migration. <b>The Velseis data package is available on request from clientservices@ga.gov.au - Quote eCat# 145905</b>

The Officer Basin in South Australia and Western Australia is the focus of a regional stratigraphic study being undertaken by the Exploring for the Future (EFTF) program, an Australian Government initiative dedicated to increasing investment in resource exploration in Australia. This data release provides data from new digital photography, X-ray Computerised Tomography (XCT) scanning, unconfined compressive strength (UCS) and tensile strength, laboratory ultrasonic testing, and gas porosity and permeability experiments for 41 samples from five legacy stratigraphic and petroleum exploration boreholes drilled within the Officer Basin. Additional low permeability tests were undertaken on select samples that were identified as being ultra-tight (permeability <1 µD). These samples were analysed at CSIRO Geomechanics and Geophysics Laboratory in Perth during April to June 2021.

<div>Exploring for the Future (EFTF) is a program dedicated to exploring Australia’s resource potential and boosting investment. This program is designed to produce pre-competitive information to assist with the evaluation of the hydrocarbon resource potential of onshore basins and attract exploration investment to Australia. This record presents geochemical analyses of natural gases sampled from Nangwarry 1, located in the onshore Otway Basin, undertaken in partnership with the Department for Energy and Mining – Energy Resources, Government of South Australia, as part of the EFTF program Natural Hydrogen module. The Nangwarry Joint Venture drilled Nangwarry 1 to investigate the potential for the development of food grade, carbon dioxide production from this well. The results of the molecular and stable carbon and hydrogen isotopic analyses undertaken by Geoscience Australia are released in this report. The molecular data show that the gas composition in this well has an average of 96 mol% CO2 with an isotopic signature indicative of a magmatic origin, being comparable with previously produced gases from onshore Otway Basin wells (e.g. Boggy Creek 1, Caroline 1) for use by the food industry. The carbon and hydrogen isotopic composition of the C1–C5 hydrocarbon gases from Nangwarry 1 are suggestive of a source from within the Crayfish Supersequence.</div>

<diThe Permian and Triassic Pedirka and Simpson basins in central Australia have proven petroleum potential with a non-commercial oil discovery in the Poolowanna Trough and several wells showing evidence for residual oil columns. However, these basins remain underexplored with only 42 wells drilled and relatively sparse 2D seismic coverage. Consequently, our knowledge of the structural and stratigraphic framework of the basins continues to grow as new data sets are acquired. Understanding the area’s resource potential continues to improve as new insights are gained into the presence and effectiveness of the main risk elements (reservoir, seal, hydrocarbon charge and trapping mechanisms) associated with a variety of sub-surface resources. Geoscience Australia, the Northern Territory Geological Survey, and the South Australian Department of Energy and Mining are collaborating on the Australia’s Future Energy Resources project under the Exploring for the Future program. One of the aims of this collaborative project is to assess the resource potential for conventional and unconventional hydrocarbons and carbon capture and storage (CCS) resources in the Pedirka, Simpson and western Eromanga basins. A play-based exploration approach is being used to systematically evaluate the key risk elements for each regional reservoir-seal interval (i.e. (play intervals) through the analysis of drilling results and spatial data to map sweet spots. These assessments aim to reduce exploration uncertainties by providing spatially-enabled assessments of the energy resources and CCS potential of the region. A key requirement for undertaking play-based resource assessments is to develop a chronostratigraphic geological framework that defines the main regional play intervals. Regional play schemes have been developed and applied over several decades for petroleum explorers in Western Australia, but have not yet become readily available for explorers in central and eastern Australian onshore basins. This paper presents a chronostratigraphic play scheme that is being applied to resource assessments in the Pedirka and Simpson basins. The scheme includes two Triassic play intervals correlating to the Peera Peera and Walkandi formations, and three Permian play intervals correlating to the Purni Formation and the Crown Point Formation. This Abstract was submitted/presented to the 2022 Central Australian Basins Symposium IV (CABS) 29-30 August (https://agentur.eventsair.com/cabsiv/)

Geoscience Australia is leading a regional evaluation of potential mineral, energy and groundwater resources through the Exploring for the Future (EFTF) program. This stratigraphic assessment is part of the Onshore Basin Inventories project, and was undertaken to understand Devonian-aged depositional systems and stratigraphy in Queensland’s Adavale Basin. Such data are fundamental for any exploration activities. Maximising the use of existing well data can lead to valuable insights into the regional prospectivity of sedimentary basins. Data from 53 Adavale Basin wells have been used to evaluate subsurface stratigraphy, depositional environments and hydrocarbon shows across the basin. Stratigraphic data from 26 representative wells, where the well intersected at least three Devonian stratigraphic units, are used to generate chronostratigraphic time-space charts and two-dimensional well correlations within, and between, different (northern, north central, central, west central, east central and southern) parts of the basin. The primary objectives of the study are: • stratigraphic gap analysis to identify geological uncertainties and data deficiencies in the areas of interest, • integrate the well data with Geoscience Australia’s databases (i.e., Australian Stratigraphic Units, Time Scale, Geochronology, STRATDAT, RESFACS),the Geological Survey of Queensland’s Datasets and publicly available (published and unpublished) research data and information, • determine the lithostratigraphic unit tops, log and lithology characterisations, depositional facies, boundary criteria, spatial and temporal distribution and regional correlations, • integrate key biostratigraphic zones and markers with geochronological absolute age dates to generate a chronostratigraphic Time-Space Diagram of the basin. This work improves the understanding of the chronostratigraphic relationships across the Adavale Basin. The age of the sedimentary successions of the basin have been refined using geochronology, biostratigraphy and lithostratigraphic correlation. The chronostratigraphic and biozonation chart of the Adavale Basin has been updated and the stratigraphic, biostratigraphic and hydrocarbon shows datasets will be available for viewing and download via the Geoscience Australia Portal (https://portal.ga.gov.au/restore/15808dee-efcd-428e-ba5b-59b0106a83e3).

<div>Surface magnetic resonance (SMR) techniques image subsurface water using the electromagnetic response of resonant hydrogen nuclei in water. Here we introduce the SMRPInv (Surface Magnetic Resonance Probabilistic Inversion) package, which couples a high-performance forward modeller for SMR data, and a Gaussian process based non-linear Bayesian inversion. Both the forward and inverse codes are part of the freely available, open source HiQGA (High Quality Geophysical Analysis) codebase written entirely in Julia. We summarise the relevant forward physics, the necessary data processing of free induction decay at an SMR sounding, followed by the estimation of subsurface water content with a non-linear parameterisation. Results are presented for synthetic inversions as well as field data from Western Davenport (Northern Territory). Comparisons are made against downhole logging data, together with results from a deterministic inversion of the same SMR soundings. Through this, we demonstrate that a probabilistic approach is key to conceptualising variability of subsurface water content.&nbsp;</div>

Explore important concepts about groundwater using this comprehensive teaching resource. This mini unit includes case studies of Australian groundwater topics, First Nations Australian perspectives about water use and groundwater are also included. This mini unit included four files - the guide, 2 x student activities and a kml file. The guide includes educator tips as well as answers to the student activities. Suitable for upper primary to lower secondary students.