This report deals with the radioactive prospect known as the Burrundie Prospect and with the area surrounding the prospect. Mapping carried out in this area to date (June, 1954) has been of a reconnaissance nature only and the report and the accompanying plans are designed to assist future work of a more detailed character. Significant radioactivity in the Burrundie area was first discovered on 20th May, 1954, by a party engaged in regional mapping and including geologists B.P. Walpole and J.G. Best. Since that date further anomalies have been located in the area surrounding the initial discovery.

Report on the activities of the administrative and technical sections in the Katherine-Darwin area, to July, 1954. A brief account is given of geological and geophysical operations. The results of prospecting and development work are summarised.

This report is an account of geological and geophysical investigations of the Burrundie Radioactive Prospect, which is located three and a half miles west-south-west of Burrundie Siding on the North Australian Railway.

On 28th September, 1954, West Australian Petroleum Pty. Ltd. forwarded a short length of core from a depth of about 3,880 feet in Cape Range Well No. 1. In hand specimen the rock is dark brownish grey in colour and is dense and tough. Fragments of wood and of a pelecypod shell are present. A micro-palaeontological examination of the rock yielded interesting information as to the age of the beds the well penetrated at this depth. This section of the rock and of the fragment of wood were cut, and portion of the rock was crushed in the hope of finding micro-fossils.

Two specimens of lower Cretaceous fossils from Papua New Guinea are described in this record: (i) a Neocomian Holaster of the H. cordatus group from near Mullens Harbour, Papua; and (ii) Lamellibranchia from Wapenamanda, Western Highlands District, Territory of New Guinea.

The uranium prospect at Coronation Hill is situated on the south side of the valley of the South Alligator River, 75 miles from the town of Pine Creek, from which it is accessible by trucks in the dry season. The surface showings consist of discontinuous exposures of autunite over an area approximately 400 feet square upon the north-eastern corner of Coronation Hill, an isolated feature within the river-valley. The rocks present are of Proterozoic age. Mineralization is found within two deeply-weathered members of a sedimentary-volcanic complex which forms the basal member of the Upper Proterozoic: the rocks of the prospect may be in part of Lower Proterozoic age. Sulphide mineralization accompanied by a secondary uranium mineral has been found at one point by diamond drilling: the sulphides are principally pyrite and the nickel sulphide bravoite. Mineralization is associated with a partly crushed and highly altered zone adjacent to a mass of Upper Proterozoic sandstone which overlaps the older and lower rocks. The structure is imperfectly understood and the control over mineralization has not been established. Development work, including costeaning, pitting, diamond drilling (1006 feet in two holes) and geophysical surveys (Radiometric, magnetic and electrical) has found no mineralization of economic grade, although it has shown the presence of alteration and sulphide mineralization which indicate that the full potentialities of the prospect have not yet been determined. Further work sufficient to complete preliminary exploration would require a minimum of 2500 feet of diamond drilling on underground operations at least equivalent to 1000 feet of drifting and crosscutting. Diamond drilling is somewhat preferable, since it can reach more deeply below the weathered zone. Only after completion of this additional work can it be determined whether or not the prospect is of economic value.

This report summarises the activities of the Geophysical Section of the Bureau of Mineral Resources, Geology and Geophysics of the Department of National Development in so far as the magnetic secular variation at stations under its control is concerned. It is a continuation of previous reports submitted to the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics, the last of which covered activities during the years 1948-51.

Report on the activities of the administrative and technical sections in the Katherine-Darwin area, to March, 1954. A brief account is given of geological and geophysical operations. The results of prospecting and field work are summarised.

In 1944, while Mr. H. B. Owen, geologist of the Bureau of Mineral Resources, was travelling by road from Port Lincoln, South Australia, to Norseman, Western Australia, he collected specimens of the Tertiary rocks for micropalaeontological examination. A detailed report on these samples has never been put on record, but, as the area is now being investigated for the possibility of oil accumulation, the samples have been examined and this report prepared. Some interesting observations made by Mr. Owen during the trip are incorporated here. The most important results of the micropalaeontological examination of these limestones are: 1. The discovery of extensive deposits of upper Eocene age both in outcrop and in subsurface sections; 2. The similarity of the upper Eocene to lower Miocene stratigraphical sequence in the coastal area of the Nullarbor Plains with that found in portion[s] of the Carnarvon Basin, Western Australia, in the Adelaide Basin, South Australia, in north-western Victoria, and in the Torquay area, central southern Victoria.

Report on the activities of the administrative and technical sections in the Katherine-Darwin area, to April, 1954. A brief account is given of geological and geophysical operations. The results of prospecting and field work are summarised.