Product catalogue
A national-scale mineral potential assessment for carbonatite-related rare earth element mineral systems in Australia
<div>The production of rare earth elements is critical for the transition to a low carbon economy. Carbonatites (>50% carbonate minerals) are one of the most significant sources of rare earth elements (REEs), both domestically within Australia, as well as globally. Given the strategic importance of critical minerals, including REEs, for the Australian national economy, a mineral potential assessment has been undertaken to evaluate the prospectivity for carbonatite-related REE (CREE) mineralisation in Australia. CREE deposits form as the result of lithospheric- to deposit-scale processes that are spatially and temporally coincident.</div><div><br></div><div>Building on previous research into the formation of carbonatites and their related REE mineralisation, a mineral system model has been developed that incorporates four components: (1) source of metals, fluids, and ligands, (2) energy sources and fluid flow drivers, (3) fluid flow pathways and lithospheric architecture, and (4) ore deposition. This study demonstrates how national-scale datasets and a mineral systems-based approach can be used to map the mineral potential for CREE mineral systems in Australia.</div><div><br></div><div>Using statistical analysis to guide the feature engineering and map weightings, a weighted index overlay method has been used to generate national-scale mineral potential maps that reduce the exploration search space for CREE mineral systems by up to ∼90%. In addition to highlighting regions with known carbonatites and CREE mineralisation, the mineral potential assessment also indicates high potential in parts of Australia that have no previously identified carbonatites or CREE deposits.</div><div><br></div><div><b>Citation: </b>Ford, A., Huston, D., Cloutier, J., Doublier, M., Schofield, A., Cheng, Y., and Beyer, E., 2023. A national-scale mineral potential assessment for carbonatite-related rare earth element mineral systems in Australia, <i>Ore Geology Reviews</i>, V. 161, 105658. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oregeorev.2023.105658</div>
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Creation)
- 2023-04-20
- Date (Publication)
- 2023-11-01T21:29:06
- Citation identifier
- Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/147754
- Cited responsible party
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Author Ford, A.
Internal Contact Author Huston, D.
Internal Contact Author Cloutier, J.
External Contact Author Doublier, M.
Internal Contact Author Schofield, A.
Internal Contact Author Cheng, Y.
Internal Contact Author Beyer, E.
Internal Contact Publisher Elsevier B.V.
External Contact
- Name
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Ore Geology Reviews
- Issue identification
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Volume 161, October 2023
- Page
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105658
- Purpose
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A national-scale mineral potential map for carbonatite-related rare earth element mineral systems has been developed using a hybrid data- and knowledge-driven approach using a mineral systems framework. Mappable criteria have been identified that represent spatial proxies for the mineral system components and have been derived from a large volume of multidisciplinary precompetitive geoscience data. The mineral potential map successfully predicts the location of known carbonatites and carbonatite-related rare earth element deposits in Australia while reducing the exploration search space and highlighting new areas of elevated prospectivity in under-explored areas.
- Status
- Completed
- Point of contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Resource provider Minerals, Energy and Groundwater Division
External Contact Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Point of contact Ford, A.
Internal Contact
- Spatial representation type
- Topic category
-
- Geoscientific information
Extent
))
- Maintenance and update frequency
- Not planned
Resource format
- Title
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Product data repository: Various Formats
- Website
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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
- Project
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EFTF – Exploring for the Future
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- Project
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Australia’s Resources Framework
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- Keywords
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Mineral potential
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- Keywords
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mineral systems
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- Keywords
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carbonatites
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- Keywords
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rare earth elements
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- theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf
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Earth Sciences
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Data mining and knowledge discovery
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- Keywords
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critical minerals
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- Keywords
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Published_External
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Resource constraints
- Title
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
- Alternate title
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CC-BY
- Edition
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4.0
- Addressee
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details User Any
- Use constraints
- License
- Use constraints
- Other restrictions
- Other constraints
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© Commonwealth of Australia 2023
Resource constraints
- Title
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Australian Government Security Classification System
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
- Classification system
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Australian Government Security Classification System
Associated resource
- Association Type
- Generated
- Title
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Carbonatite-related rare earth element mineral potential maps
- Citation identifier
- 147865
- Citation identifier
- 2f73741c-bb48-427a-8c08-9a51f99bffd4
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Distribution Information
- Distributor contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Distributor Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice facsimile
- OnLine resource
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Link to Ore Geology Reviews article
Link to Ore Geology Reviews article
- Distribution format
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Resource lineage
- Statement
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<div>Multiple national-scale geological and geophysical datasets have been used as the basis for generating novel mappable criteria for distinct mineral system components. The mappable criteria have been integrated into a series of coherent products to assess national mineral potential.</div>
Metadata constraints
- Title
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Australian Government Security Classification System
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
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urn:uuid/48fab843-d291-440a-88f7-f15be686a7e0
- Title
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GeoNetwork UUID
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
- Contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Point of contact Ford, A.
Internal Contact Owner Ford, A.
MEG Internal Contact
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Document
- Name
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Journal Article / Conference Paper
Alternative metadata reference
- Title
-
Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with
uuid
- Citation identifier
- eCatId/147754
- Date info (Creation)
- 2023-10-11T03:24:14
- Date info (Revision)
- 2023-10-11T03:24:14
Metadata standard
- Title
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AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-3
- Title
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Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014
- Edition
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Version 2.0, September 2018
- Citation identifier
- http://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551