<div>This report presents the results of petrographic and X-ray Diffraction analysis undertaken by Microanalysis Australia under contract to Geoscience Australia, on rock samples collected from selected drill holes across the Proterozoic Birrindudu Basin and underlying metamorphic basement.</div><div><br></div>

<div>This report presents new data from X-ray Computerised Tomography (XCT) scanning, gas porosity and permeability testing, and grain density measurements of 79 of 82 samples from the Birrindudu and McArthur basins. Three plugs could not be recovered from the whole core section. Plugs were taken from depths of interest from drill holes Manbulloo S1, Hidden Valley S2, Broughton 1, ANT003, 99VRNTGSDD1, 99VRNTGSDD2, Lamont Pass 3 and WLMB001B.</div><div><br></div><div>These tests were performed in 2023 by CSIRO in Perth. The full results as provided by CSIRO to Geoscience Australia are provided as an attachment to this document.&nbsp;This work was conducted as part of the Exploring for the Future Program (Officer–Musgrave–Birrindudu module).</div><div><br></div>

<div>Geoscience Australia’s Exploring for the Future program provides precompetitive information to inform decision-making by government, community and industry on the sustainable development of Australia's mineral, energy and groundwater resources. By gathering, analysing and interpreting new and existing precompetitive geoscience data and knowledge, we are building a national picture of Australia’s geology and resource potential.</div><div><br></div><div>The Paleo to Mesoproterozoic Birrindudu Basin is an underexplored frontier basin located in northwestern Northern Territory and northeastern Western Australia. The Birrindudu Basin is a region of focus for the second phase of the EFTF program (2020–2024) as it contains strata of similar age to the prospective McArthur Basin, South Nicholson region and Mount Isa Province, but remains comparatively poorly understood.</div><div><br></div><div>Geoscience Australia have undertaken (via the service provider, FIT, Schlumberger) Fluid Inclusion Petrography and Microthermometry analysis of samples for the drillhole 99VRNTGSDD1, Birrindudu Basin, located in the northwest Northern Territory (Company reference number MT#F1230005c).</div><div><br></div><div>This eCat Record accompanies the report containing the results of fluid inclusion stratigraphy on this drillhole (eCat record 148973).</div>

<div>Geoscience Australia’s Exploring for the Future program provides precompetitive information to inform decision-making by government, community and industry on the sustainable development of Australia's mineral, energy and groundwater resources. By gathering, analysing and interpreting new and existing precompetitive geoscience data and knowledge, we are building a national picture of Australia’s geology and resource potential.</div><div><br></div><div>The Paleo to Mesoproterozoic Birrindudu Basin is an underexplored frontier basin located in northwestern Northern Territory and northeastern Western Australia. The Birrindudu Basin is a region of focus for the second phase of the EFTF program (2020–2024) as it contains strata of similar age to the prospective McArthur Basin, South Nicholson region and Mount Isa Province, but remains comparatively poorly understood.</div><div><br></div><div>Geoscience Australia have undertaken (via the service provider, FIT, Schlumberger) Fluid Inclusion Petrography and Microthermometry analysis of samples for the drillhole WLMB001B, Birrindudu Basin, located in the northwest Northern Territory (Company reference number MT#FI230004a).</div><div><br></div><div>This eCat Record accompanies the report containing the results of fluid inclusion stratigraphy on this drillhole (eCat record 149178)</div>

<div>Geoscience Australia’s Exploring for the Future program provides precompetitive information to inform decision-making by government, community and industry on the sustainable development of Australia's mineral, energy and groundwater resources. By gathering, analysing and interpreting new and existing precompetitive geoscience data and knowledge, we are building a national picture of Australia’s geology and resource potential.</div><div><br></div><div>The Paleo to Mesoproterozoic Birrindudu Basin is an underexplored frontier basin located in northwestern Northern Territory and northeastern Western Australia. The Birrindudu Basin is a region of focus for the second phase of the EFTF program (2020–2024) as it contains strata of similar age to the prospective McArthur Basin, South Nicholson region and Mount Isa Province, but remains comparatively poorly understood.</div><div><br></div><div>Geoscience Australia have undertaken (via the service provider, FIT, Schlumberger) stratigraphic reconstructions of bulk volatile chemistry from fluid inclusions from the drillhole WLMB001B, Birrindudu Basin, located in the northwest Northern Territory.</div><div><br></div><div>This ecat record releases the final report containing the results of fluid inclusion stratigraphy, thin section and microthermometry analyses, raw data files (*.LAS) and rock descriptions by FIT Schlumberger. Company reference number FI230004a.</div>

Geoscience Australia’s Exploring for the Future program provides precompetitive information to inform decision-making by government, community and industry on the sustainable development of Australia's mineral, energy and groundwater resources. By gathering, analysing and interpreting new and existing precompetitive geoscience data and knowledge, we are building a national picture of Australia’s geology and resource potential. The Paleo to Mesoproterozoic Birrindudu Basin is an underexplored frontier basin located in northwestern Northern Territory and northeastern Western Australia. The Birrindudu Basin is a region of focus for the second phase of the EFTF program (2020–2024) as it contains strata of similar age to the prospective McArthur Basin, South Nicholson region and Mount Isa Province, but remains comparatively poorly understood. Geoscience Australia have undertaken (via the service provider, FIT, Schlumberger) stratigraphic reconstructions of bulk volatile chemistry from fluid inclusions from an mineral exploration drillhole LBD2, Birrindudu Basin, located in the northwest Northern Territory This ecat record releases the final report and raw data files (*.LAS) by FIT Schlumberger. Company reference number FI230005a.

Geoscience Australia’s Exploring for the Future program provides precompetitive information to inform decision-making by government, community and industry on the sustainable development of Australia's mineral, energy and groundwater resources. By gathering, analysing and interpreting new and existing precompetitive geoscience data and knowledge, we are building a national picture of Australia’s geology and resource potential. The Paleo to Mesoproterozoic Birrindudu Basin is an underexplored frontier basin located in northwestern Northern Territory and northeastern Western Australia. The Birrindudu Basin is a region of focus for the second phase of the EFTF program (2020–2024) as it contains strata of similar age to the prospective McArthur Basin, South Nicholson region and Mount Isa Province, but remains comparatively poorly understood. Geoscience Australia (in collaboration with the Northern Territory Geological Survey) acquired around 700 line-kms of deep crustal reflection seismic data across northwest Northern Territory encompassing not only the frontier Birrindudu Basin but adjacent highly prospective regions, such as the Tanami. This ecat record releases the final survey route shapefiles, noting that some segments were not acquired due to site access restrictions. Seismic field data will be published in the near future release following completion of in-house QA/QC protocols

<div>This report details results and methodology from two hydrochemistry sampling programs performed as part of Geoscience Australia’s Musgrave Palaeovalley Project. The Musgrave Palaeovalley Project is a data acquisition and scientific investigation program based around the central west of Australia. It is aimed at investigating groundwater processes and resources within the Cenozoic fill and palaeovalleys of the region. This project, and many others, have been performed as part of the Exploring for the Future (EFTF) program, an eight-year, $225 million Australian Government funded geoscience data and precompetitive information acquisition program.</div><div>Data released here is from 18 bores sampled for groundwater and tested for a range of analytes including field parameters, major and minor elements, isotopes and trace gases. The sampling methods, quality assurance/quality control procedures, analytical methods and results are included in this report.</div>

Exploring for the Future (EFTF) is an Australian Government program led by Geoscience Australia (GA), in partnership with state and Northern Territory governments. The EFTF program (2016-2024) aims to drive industry investment in resource exploration in frontier regions of onshore Australia by providing new precompetitive data and information about their energy, mineral and groundwater resource potential. Under the EFTF program, the Onshore Energy Project undertook a study of petroleum prospectivity of the onshore Officer Basin in South Australia and Western Australia. Birksgate 1 well in South Australia was selected based on the occurrence of gas and oil shows reported in the well completion report. Sampling of cuttings and cores was done at Geoscience Australia's Petroleum Data Repository in Canberra. Geoscience Australia commissioned a fluid inclusion stratigraphy (FIS) study on the downhole samples. Here, volatile components ostensibly trapped with fluid inclusions are released and analysed revealing the level of exposure of the well section to migrating fluids. Integration of thin section (TS) preparations reveal to extent of gas and fluid trapping within fluid inclusions while microthemometry (MT) gives an estimation of fluid inclusion trapping temperature. For Birksgate 1, FIS analysis was performed on 414 cuttings and 33 cores between 150 feet and 6161 feet base depth, together with 14 samples prepared for TS and 3 samples for MT. To support this study, lithostratigraphic tops were compiled by Geoscience Australia. The results of the study are found in the accompanying documents.

<div>Previous work by the SA government and CSIRO[i] highlighted the value of integrating AEM data with other geological and hydrogeological data to model palaeovalley groundwater systems and develop regional hydrogeological conceptualisations. This allows better-informed water supply decisions and management for communities in remote parts of Australia where these systems provide the only available and long-term water resource. The Exploring for the Future Musgrave Palaeovalley module seeks to apply similar work flows across the western Musgrave Province and adjacent Officer and Canning basins.</div><div>Open file mineral exploration AEM data from 11 surveys in WA and SA flown between 2009 and 2012 were re-processed and inverted to produce conductivity models and a suite of derived datasets. Geoscience Australia’s Layered-Earth-Inversion was used as a single standard processing and inversion method to improve continuity and data quality.</div><div>These legacy AEM data, originally for mineral exploration, have been incorporated with DEM-derived landscape attributes, previous palaeovalley mapping and available bore lithologies to model palaeovalley base surfaces. This presentation will provide an example from four blocks of AEM data to show how repurposing data from mineral exploration, public bore data and landscape analysis can be used to identify palaeovalley systems which provide critical water supplies for remote and regional communities and industry[ii].</div><div>This approach can be used to model palaeovalley systems from a range of geoscientific and other datasets. The Exploring for the Future Musgrave Palaeovalley module has acquired ~23,000 line km of AEM across parts of WA and the NT at line spacings of 1 and 5 km. This new precompetitive data will be used to model palaeovalley system geometry and integrate with new and existing AEM, drilling, landscape, groundwater chemistry and surface geophysics data to test hydrogeological conceptualisations of these groundwater systems.</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div> [i] Costar, A., Love, A., Krapf, C., Keppel, M., Munday, T., Inverarity, K., Wallis, I. &&nbsp;Sørensen, C. (2019). Hidden water in remote areas – using innovative exploration to uncover the past in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands. MESA Journal 90(2), 23 - 35 pp.</div><div>Krapf, C., Costar, A., Stoian, L., Keppel, M., Gordon, G., Inverarity, K., Love, A. &&nbsp;Munday, T. (2019). A sniff of the ocean in the Miocene at the foothills of the Musgrave Ranges - unravelling the evolution of the Lindsay East Palaeovalley. MESA Journal 90(2), 4 - 22 pp.</div><div>Krapf, C. B. E., Costar, A., Munday, T., Irvine, J. A. & Ibrahimi, T., 2020. Palaeovalley map of the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands (1st edition), 1:500 000 scale. Goyder Institute for Water Research, Geological Survey of South Australia, CSIRO.</div><div>https://sarigbasis.pir.sa.gov.au/WebtopEw/ws/samref/sarig1/wci/Record?r=0&m=1&w=catno=2042122. </div><div>Munday, T., Taylor, A., Raiber, M., Sørensen, C., Peeters, L. J. M., Krapf, C., Cui, T., Cahill, K., Flinchum, B., Smolanko, N., Martinez, J., Ibrahimi, T. &&nbsp;Gilfedder, M., 2020a. Integrated regional hydrogeophysical conceptualisation of the Musgrave Province, South Australia, Goyder Institute for Water Research Technical Report Series 20/04, Goyder Institute for Water Research, Adelaide.</div><div>Munday, T., Gilfedder, M., Costar, A., Blaikie, T., Cahill, K., Cui, T., Davis, A., Deng, Z., Flinchum, B., Gao, L., Gogoll, M., Gordon, G., Ibrahimi, T., Inverarity, K., Irvine, J., Janardhanan, Sreekanth, Jiang, Z., Keppel, M., Krapf, C., Lane, T., Love, A., Macnae, J., Mariethoz, G., Martinez, J., Pagendam, D., Peeters, L., Pickett, T., Robinson, N., Siade, A., Smolanko, N., Sorensen, C., Stoian, L., Taylor, A., Visser, G., Wallis, I. &&nbsp;Xie, Y., 2020b. Facilitating Long-term Outback Water Solutions (G-Flows Stage 3): Final Summary Report. Goyder Institute for Water Research, Adelaide, http://hdl.handle.net/102.100.100/376125?index=1. </div><div>[ii] Symington, N. J., Ley-Cooper, Y. A. &&nbsp;Smith, M. L., 2022. West Musgrave AEM conductivity models and data release. Geoscience Australia, Canberra, https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/146278.&nbsp;</div> This Abstract was submitted/presented to the 2022 Sub 22 Conference 28-30 November (http://sub22.w.tas.currinda.com/)