Presentation for MODSIM2013.

Powerpoint presentation for "Advanced Topics in Carbon Capture and Storage" 7-10 April, Porto Alegre, Brazil

Natural disasters are a frequent occurrence in the Asia-Pacific region because of the combination of very dense population and very hazard-prone areas. Australia has recently been called upon to play a leadership role in responding to natural disasters, especially in recent years, with earthquakes in Pakistan and Indonesia, landslides in the Philippines, tsunami events in Indonesia and the Solomon Islands, cyclone related flooding in Papua New Guinea, and the regular occurrence of cyclones in the southwest Pacific and southeast Asia. Furthermore, there is an increasing trend in the number and size of disasters as the effects of climate change are felt and as rapid population growth and urbanisation results in increasingly large and vulnerable populations in areas exposed to natural hazards. An activity undertaken by Geoscience Australia (GA) for AusAID made a preliminary assessment of natural hazard risk across all Asia-Pacific countries. The objective was to gain a better understanding of disaster risks across the AusAID portfolio and support AusAID to better target disaster risk reduction and humanitarian response activities. This project sought to broadly identify the characteristics, frequency, location and potential consequences of rapid-onset natural hazards, including: earthquake, tsunami, landslide, flood, cyclone, flood, wildfire and volcanic eruptions. Subsequently GA has partnered with AusAID to implement programs in the Asia-Pacific region aimed at building the capacity Government agencies to assess natural hazard risk.

The Bushfire CRC runs a Research Advisory Forum every 6 months for each project to report. This is the last RAF for teh FireDST project.

UNCOVER vision Geological models: building and testing Surface and cover Upper crust Deeper lithosphere Applying mineral systems undercover (examples) Current and future programme: testing geological models with drilling

Presented at the Evolution and metallogenesis of the North Australian Craton Conference, 20-22 June 2006, Alice Springs. The Warumpi Province is an east-trending 1690 Ma - 1600 Ma terrane which extends for >500 km along the southwestern margin of the Arunta Region. It is interpreted to be an exotic terrane that accreted onto the southern margin of the North Australian Craton (NAC) at 1640 Ma (Scrimgeour et al 2005a). The evolution of the Warumpi Province from 1690 Ma to 350 Ma has been constrained through integrated lithological, structural and metamorphic mapping, geochemical and isotopic analysis, and geophysical interpretation (Scrimgeour et al 2005b). The Warumpi Province has been subdivided into three domains that have differing protolith ages and structural and metamorphic histories: the amphibolite facies Haasts Bluff Domain in the south and east, the granulite facies Yaya Domain in the north, and the greenschist facies Kintore Domain in the west. The Warumpi Province can be viewed as greenfields in terms of minerals exploration and has the potential to host a variety of mineralisation styles including base metals (BHT, VMS), IOCG, and diamonds. No modern mineral exploration has been undertaken within the Warumpi Province. <p>Related product:<a href="https://www.ga.gov.au/products/servlet/controller?event=GEOCAT_DETAILS&amp;catno=64764">Evolution and metallogenesis of the North Australian Craton Conference Abstracts</p>

Australian Phanerozoic basins have been under-explored for uranium. As a result, Geoscience Australia has been conducting research into uranium systems in the Frome Embayment, with the aim of developing a series of models and exploration techniques to assist uranium exploration in other basins. The transport and depositional mechanisms are relatively well understood for sandstone-hosted uranium deposits; uranium is transported by oxidised meteoric fluids and precipitated by either an in situ reductant or by mixing with a reduced fluid. Using the concept that an oxidised fluid will progressively oxidise the rock that it passes through and, in turn the fluid will be reduced by wall rock interactions, potentially we can use drillhole logs to identify and map the redox state of the rocks and hence identify depositional sites. A pilot study was undertaken to determine whether the open file geological logs could be used to map the redox state. A list of oxidised and reduced keywords was identified from the logs. Logs were digitised and oxidised words were given a value of one and reduced words given a value of negative one. Where there was combination of oxidised and reduced words, zero was used to designate the intermediate redox state. Where redox state could not be determined from the logs, a null data value was used. The redox values were imported into gOcad and gridded using DSI and IDW for comparison purposes. The technique identified north-south trending features in the Namba Formation interpreted to be previously unmapped paleochannels. This technique of mapping redox conditions of sediments using open file drilling reports is able to be applied in other basin settings, assisting in the targeting of sandstone-hosted uranium systems.

The Eromanga Basin has the potential to contain significant sandstone-hosted uranium mineralisation. Publicly available geophysical and geochemical datasets have been integrated into a 3D geological map for the Eromanga Basin. Initial uranium mineral system assessment has highlighted two regions of potential exploration significance: the region east of Mt Isa corresponding to the Euroka Arch and the area southwest of Lake Eyre.

The presentation covers the following: - uranium occurrences widely distributed but Major Deposits are localised in specific zones/fields - > 90% of U resources confined to one field - need to go beyond the components (source, pathway, trap) of mineral system to explain the distribution of U endowment; hence the presentation will: - focus on the Architecture of the system - to delineate important regional constraints.

Shared geological and geochemical processes are involved in the formation of particular groups of uranium deposits. Three families of uranium mineral systems are recognised: magmatic-, metamorphic- and basin-related. End-member fluids in each family are magmatic-hydrothermal, 'metamorphic' (including fluids reacted with metamorphic rocks at elevated temperatures), and surficial fluids such as meteoric water, lake water and seawater. Most well known uranium deposit types can be accommodated within this tripartite framework, which explicitly allows for hybrid deposit types.