The Layered Geology of Australia web map service is a seamless national coverage of Australia’s surface and subsurface geology. Geology concealed under younger cover units are mapped by effectively removing the overlying stratigraphy (Liu et al., 2015). This dataset is a layered product and comprises five chronostratigraphic time slices: Cenozoic, Mesozoic, Paleozoic, Neoproterozoic, and Pre-Neoproterozoic. As an example, the Mesozoic time slice (or layer) shows Mesozoic age geology that would be present if all Cenozoic units were removed. The Pre-Neoproterozoic time slice shows what would be visible if all Neoproterozoic, Paleozoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic units were removed. The Cenozoic time slice layer for the national dataset was extracted from Raymond et al., 2012. Surface Geology of Australia, 1:1 000 000 scale, 2012 edition. Geoscience Australia, Canberra.

<div>As part of the EFTF Program, Geoscience has completed a 4-year multi-disciplinary study to investigate the energy resource potential of selected onshore basins within central Australia under the Australia’s Future Energy Resources (AFER) Project. A key component of the AFER Project has been a qualitative and quantitative play-based assessment of hydrocarbon resources and geological storage of CO2 (GSC) potential within the Pedirka and western Eromanga basins (Bradshaw et al., 2024a). This study has provided a regional interpretive data set which includes regional seismic and well log interpretations (Bradshaw et al.&nbsp;2024b, 2024c); depth-structure and isochore maps for 14 play intervals (Iwanec et al., 2024); gross-depositional environment maps for 14 play intervals (Bradshaw et al., 2024c); and petrophysical analysis of wireline log data from 23 wells (Spicer et al., 2024). This report provides a high-level summary of the hydrogeology of Pedirka and western Eromanga basins as background information for the other assessments and some findings from the 3D models that may inform future understanding of the hydrogeology of these basins. </div><div><br></div><div>The assessment area extends over ~210,000 km2 across the Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland (Figure 1). Much of the assessment area underlies national parks in South Australia and Queensland. No petroleum exploration access is allowed in the Munga Thirri Simpson Desert Conservation Park or the Witjira National Park (Dalhousie Springs area) in South Australia or Munga Thirri National Park in Queensland (Figure 1).</div><div><br></div><div>The AFER assessment area is situated within the Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre surface water catchment. The catchment’s arid climate and ephemeral river flow regime (Evans et al., 2024) makes groundwater a critical source of water for the environment, industry and communities, especially during dry periods. Groundwater dependent features in the region include water supplies for communities, industry and pastoral stations, as well as springs and other groundwater dependent ecosystems. Groundwater resources are managed by state and territory jurisdictions (see: NT Government, 2013; Queensland Government, 2017, SA Government, 2021). Across the three jurisdictions, the most important groundwater resources are those of the western Eromanga Basin (a part of Great Artesian Basin or GAB). In collaboration with state jurisdictions the Commonwealth provides a cross-jurisdictional policy framework for the GAB as well as the Lake Eyre surface water basin (DCCEEW, 2024). Key management goals include maintaining artesian pressures, water quality and viability of GAB dependent ecosystems, including springs.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div>

This web service delivers metadata for onshore active and passive seismic surveys conducted across the Australian continent by Geoscience Australia and its collaborative partners. For active seismic this metadata includes survey header data, line location and positional information, and the energy source type and parameters used to acquire the seismic line data. For passive seismic this metadata includes information about station name and location, start and end dates, operators and instruments. The metadata are maintained in Geoscience Australia's onshore active seismic and passive seismic database, which is being added to as new surveys are undertaken. Links to datasets, reports and other publications for the seismic surveys are provided in the metadata.

Mineral deposits are the products of lithospheric-scale processes. Imaging the structure and composition of the lithosphere is therefore essential to better understand these systems, and to efficiently target mineral exploration. Seismic techniques have unique sensitivity to velocity variations in the lithosphere and mantle, and are therefore the primary means available for imaging these structures. Here, we present the first stage of Geoscience Australia's passive seismic imaging project (AusArray), developed in the Exploring for the Future program. This includes generation of compressional (P) and shear (S) body-wave tomographic imaging models. Our results, on a continental scale, are broadly consistent with a priori expectations for regional lithospheric structure and the results of previously published studies. However, we also demonstrate the ability to resolve detailed features of the Australian lithospheric mantle underneath the dense seismic deployments of AusArray. Contrasting P- and S-wave velocity trends within the Tennant Creek – Mount Isa region suggest that the lithospheric root may have undergone melt-related alteration. This complements other studies, which point towards high prospectivity for iron oxide–copper–gold mineralisation in the region. <b>Citation: </b>Haynes, M.W., Gorbatov, A., Hejrani, B., Hassan, R., Zhao, J., Zhang, F. and Reading, A.M., 2020. AusArray: imaging the lithospheric mantle using body-wave tomography. In: Czarnota, K., Roach, I., Abbott, S., Haynes, M., Kositcin, N., Ray, A. and Slatter, E. (eds.) Exploring for the Future: Extended Abstracts, Geoscience Australia, Canberra, 1–4.

The Exploring for the Future Program (EFTF) is a $100.5 million four year, federally funded initiative to better characterise the mineral, energy and groundwater potential of northern Australia. As part of this initiative, this record presents new whole-rock geochemistry data from 967 samples of sedimentary rocks sampled from 26 wells in the South Nicholson region, including the Proterozoic South Nicholson Basin and Lawn Hill Platform, the Neoproterozoic to Devonian Georgina Basin and the Jurassic to Cretaceous Carpenteria Basin. This work complements other components of the EFTF program, including the South Nicholson Basin seismic survey, a comprehensive geochronology program and hydrocarbon prospectivity studies to better understand the geological evolution and basin architecture of the region, and facilitate identification of areas of unrecognised resource potential and prospectivity. The South Nicholson region, straddling north-eastern Northern Territory and north-western Queensland, arguably represents one of the least geologically understood regions of Proterozoic northern Australia. The South Nicholson region is situated between two highly prospective provinces, the greater McArthur Basin in the Northern Territory, the Lawn Hill Platform and the Mount Isa Province in Queensland, both with demonstrated hydrocarbon and base metal potential. These new geochemical data provide baseline understanding of regional resource prospectivity of sedimentary rocks in the South Nicholson region. During 2017 and 2018, 967 drill core and cuttings were sampled from 26 legacy boreholes that intersected the South Nicholson region housed in Northern Territory Geological Survey’s core repository in Darwin, the Geological Survey of Queensland’s core repository in Brisbane and Geoscience Australia’s core repository in Canberra. This data release contains the results of elemental analyses on these samples, which include X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF), Loss-On-Ignition (LOI), Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) for all samples, in addition to ron titration (FeO) for selected samples. The data was generated in the Inorganic Geochemistry laboratory at Geoscience Australia between 2017 and 2019 as part of the EFTF program. All data was quality controlled based on Certified Reference Material standards (CRMs) and duplicate samples analysed with each batch of samples.

The magnetotelluric (MT) method is increasingly being applied to map tectonic architecture and mineral systems. Under the Exploring for the Future (EFTF) program, Geoscience Australia has invested significantly in the collection of new MT data. The science outputs from these data are underpinned by an open-source data analysis and visualisation software package called MTPy. MTPy started at the University of Adelaide as a means to share academic code among the MT community. Under EFTF, we have applied software engineering best practices to the code base, including adding automated documentation and unit testing, code refactoring, workshop tutorial materials and detailed installation instructions. New functionality has been developed, targeted to support EFTF-related products, and includes data analysis and visualisation. Significant development has focused on modules to work with 3D MT inversions, including capability to export to commonly used software such as Gocad and ArcGIS. This export capability has been particularly important in supporting integration of resistivity models with other EFTF datasets. The increased functionality, and improvements to code quality and usability, have directly supported the EFTF program and assisted with uptake of MTPy among the international MT community. <b>Citation:</b> Kirkby, A.L., Zhang, F., Peacock, J., Hassan, R. and Duan, J., 2020. Development of the open-source MTPy package for magnetotelluric data analysis and visualisation. In: Czarnota, K., Roach, I., Abbott, S., Haynes, M., Kositcin, N., Ray, A. and Slatter, E. (eds.) Exploring for the Future: Extended Abstracts, Geoscience Australia, Canberra, 1–4.

The hyperspectral HyLoggerTM instrument for collecting high resolution spectra data of drill core and drilling chips is a widely used and powerful in mineral and energy exploration, including sediment hosted mineralisation and hydrocarbons. It enables mapping of hydrothermal, diagenetic, and weathering assemblages, clarification of stratigraphy, and determination of primary mineralogy. This report presents key results of hyperspectral data from the HyLogger-3TM instrument collected from drilling in the Southern Stuart Corridor (SSC) project area in the Northern Territory conducted as part of Exploring for the Future (EFTF)—an eight year, $225 million Australian Government funded geoscience data and information acquisition program focused on better understanding the potential mineral, energy and groundwater resources across Australia. The results show that HyLogger plots are in most cases in the most effective means of identification of stratigraphic contacts. HyLogger plots are also especially effective and determining the depth and mineralogy of weathering and distinguishing provenance in shallow transported material such as palaeovalley fill and alluvium. Geological observations are however still crucial, especially in determining texture, which cannot be determined by the HyLogger scans or from photographs of chips and core, and in cases where contamination obscures or confuses the spectral signals. Weathering in the SSC can be determined by the appearance of dickite and poorly crystalline kaolinite. This allows a better determination of base of weathering than visual means: generally based of the presence of oxidised iron phases such as goethite and haematite (which are not definitive where the rocks already contained these prior to weathering), or where oxidised iron deposition has not occurred. This aids in depth of weathering mapping from regional AEM data. The ability of the HyLogger to discriminate between swelling (montmorillonite) and non-swelling (kaolinite, dickite) clays is potentially significant in the prediction of aquifer properties and the validation of borehole MR methods. The detection of zones of potential dolomitisation and dedolomisation through mineralogy (presence of dolomite and possible secondary calcite and magnesite, respectively) in carbonate units has the potential to similarly predict properties in carbonate units, through the potential increase in porosity/permeability of the first and decreased porosity/permeability of the second.

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.

Exploring for the Future (EFTF) is an ongoing multiyear initiative by the Australian Government, conducted by Geoscience Australia, in partnership with state and Northern Territory government agencies and other partner research institutes. The first phase of the EFTF program (2016-2020) aimed to improve Australia’s desirability for industry investment in resource exploration in frontier or ‘greenfield’ regions across northern Australia. As part of the program, Geoscience Australia employed a range of both established and innovative techniques to gather new precompetitive data and information to develop new insight into the energy, mineral and groundwater resource potential across northern Australia. To maximise impact and to stimulate industry exploration activity, Geoscience Australia focussed activities in greenfield areas where understanding of resource potential was limited. In order to address this overarching objective under the EFTF program, Geoscience Australia led acquisition of two deep crustal reflection seismic surveys in the South Nicholson region, an understudied area of little previous seismic data, straddling north-eastern Northern Territory and north-western Queensland. The first survey, L210 South Nicholson 2D Deep Crustal Seismic Survey acquired in 2017, consisted of five overlapping seismic lines (17GA-SN1 to SN5), totalling ~1100 line-km. Survey L210 linked directly into legacy Geoscience Australia seismic lines (06GA-M1 and 06GA-M2) in the vicinity of the world-class Pb-Zn Century Mine in Queensland. The results from survey L210 profoundly revised our geological understanding of the South Nicholson region, and led to the key discovery of an extensive sag basin, the Carrara Sub-basin, containing highly prospective late Paleoproterozoic to Mesoproterozoic rocks with strong affinities with the adjacent Mount Isa Province and Lawn Hill Platform. To complement and expand on the outstanding success of the South Nicholson survey and to continue to explore the resource potential across the underexplored and mostly undercover South Nicholson and Barkly regions, a second seismic survey was acquired in late 2019, the Barkly 2D reflection survey (L212). The Barkly seismic survey comprises five intersecting lines (19GA-B1 to B5), totalling ~813 line-km, extending from the NT-QLD border in the south-east, near Camooweal, to the highly prospective Beetaloo Sub-basin in the north-west. The survey ties into the South Nicholson survey (L210), the recently acquired Camooweal 2D reflection seismic survey by the Geological Survey of Queensland and industry 2D seismic in the Beetaloo Sub-basin, leveraging on and maximising the scientific value and impact on all surveys. The Barkly reflection seismic data images the south-western margin of the Carrara Sub-basin and identified additional previously unrecognised, structurally-disrupted basins of Proterozoic strata, bounded by broadly northeast trending basement highs. Critically, the survey demonstrates the stratigraphic continuity of highly prospective Proterozoic strata from the Beetaloo Sub-basin into these newly discovered, but as yet unevaluated, concealed basins and into the Carrara Sub-basin, further attesting to the regions outstanding potential for mineral and hydrocarbon resources. This survey, in concert with the South Nicholson seismic survey and other complementary EFTF funded regional geochemical, geochronology and geophysical data acquisition surveys, significantly improves our understanding of the geological evolution, basin architecture and the resource potential of this previously sparsely studied region.

The Mineral Potential Mapper (MPM) project represents a significant step forward in identifying new mineral provinces in Australia. The project demonstrated that the apparent under-representation of giant Ni Cu-PGE sulfide resources in Australia was a consequence of concealment of mineral deposits by sediments, basins and regolith (cover) which has hindered exploration success, rather than a lack of geological endowment. The project focused on the identification of prospective regions considered worthy of more detailed work (by exploration companies). The availability of new digital datasets at continental scale enabled the work which predicted a high potential for Ni-Cu-PGE sulfide deposits in a wide range of geological regions across Australia. The project delivered the following outputs: – a technical report providing the first continental-scale assessment of Ni-Cu-PGE mineral potential of Australia applying knowledge-driven geographic information system (GIS)-based prospectivity analysis methods – a series of Geodatabase digital maps (included in the report) – primary digital data and programming script used in the GIS analysis – a workshop delivered in Perth to industry on the 12 June 2016 – a world first National mineral potential map for Ni Cu-PGE sulfide deposits. The MPM materials have generated considerable industry interest. Chalice Mining Limited (Chalice) (formerly Chalice Gold Mines Limited) notes the MPM “… provided valuable input into Chalice’s regional targeting, particularly when applied to frontier areas” (and that) “… recent success at Julimar validates the work by Geoscience Australia (GA) and shows the impact that pre-competitive data can have when applied to greenfields exploration.” Chalice’s Julimar discovery is the world’s largest deposit of its type discovered in 20 years and one of four Tier one deposits discovered in the world in the last five years. It has spurred a significant uptake in tenements by explorers across a green field region and further significant finds are likely. The project has also generated considerable international government interest, sparking the Critical Minerals Mapping Initiative. The United States of America and Canada are both applying similar innovative mineral systems-based assessment methodologies to undertake precompetitive prospectivity mapping at a national scale. Given the impact of the MPM project will only be fully appreciated with the realisation of new mines, ACIL Allen has considered two hypothetical mine development scenarios: development of the Gonneville deposit based on Chalice’s (Australian Securities Exchange) ASX report of 8 July 2022, and a second case with an expansion of the Gonneville deposit (to 500Mt), coupled with a more spectacular discovery (double the size of the Gonneville deposit). Both success case scenarios were modelled using a conservative set of assumptions drawn from Chalice’s ASX reporting, prevailing market figures and industry norms. Based on those assumptions, ACIL Allen estimates that the development scenarios could generate an overall benefit to the Australian economy of between $3.48 billion and $4.57 billion and between $1.21 billion and $1.56 billion in net benefits to the Commonwealth in terms of taxation. GA’s investment in the project ($3.0 million) enabled the creation of these benefits. Indeed, every dollar invested in this project by the Commonwealth through GA could generate between $1,176 and $1,546 in additional benefits to the economy. The estimated benefit-cost ratio (BCR) for the Commonwealth Government is between 409 and 526 for the ‘success cases’. This is a substantial step up from the initial assessment conduct 12 months ago prior to the availability of resource figures for the Gonneville deposit (with a small and a large mine delivering an overall benefit of between $441 million and $869 million, with a BCR between 65 and 127).