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Exploring for the Future – Surface Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (SNMR) method

Exploring for the Future (EFTF) is an eight year, $225 million Australian Government funded program which commenced in 2016. The program is delivering new geoscience data, knowledge and decision support tools to support increased industry investment and sustainable economic development across Australia. Further detail is available at http://www.ga.gov.au/eftf. The program’s objective over the four years from 2016-2020 was to provide a holistic picture of the potential mineral, energy and groundwater resources in northern Australia. Groundwater is a critical resource that accounts for most water used across northern Australia. The groundwater component of the EFTF program focused on addressing groundwater resource knowledge gaps, to support future opportunities for economic development via irrigated agriculture, extractive industries and increased security of community water supplies. Through collaboration with State and Territory partners, the program undertook targeted regional investigations of groundwater systems and assessments of groundwater potential more broadly across the region.


The program's activities, implemented by Geoscience Australia, involved application of innovative geoscience tools to collect, integrate and analyse a range of data. It includes geological and hydrogeological data, airborne and ground-based geophysical and hydrogeochemical surveys, remote sensing data as well as stratigraphic drilling. The new data and better understanding of groundwater systems also helps inform decision making about groundwater use to protect environmental and cultural assets. These outcomes strengthen investor confidence in resources and agricultural projects by de-risking groundwater in northern Australia.

Surface nuclear magnetic resonance (SNMR) is an electrical, geophysical technique that was adapted from magnetic resonance imaging techniques used in the medical field. This technique is gaining prominence in groundwater studies as it can be used to detect the presence of water and estimate hydraulic properties in the top 100m of subsurface. SNMR data can be acquired rapidly, cheaply and non-invasively. This is advantageous in Australian groundwater studies where drilling is often expensive and logistically challenging due to land access issues and environmental regulations.


For the reasons described above SNMR has been one of the most important groundwater datasets acquired as part of the EFTF program. The derived estimates of water content have been used for several applications including; estimating hydraulic conductivity, mapping the water table surface, and defining aquifer architecture. The purpose of this document is to provide a description of the SNMR method and how the data are acquired, processed and inverted as part of the EFTF program.

Simple

Identification info

Date (Creation)
2020-12-01
Date (Publication)
2020-12-22T00:04:49
Citation identifier
Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/133982

Citation identifier
Digital Object Identifier/http://dx.doi.org/10.11636/Record.2020.059

Cited responsible party
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Author

Symington, N.

Author

Tan, K.P.

Author

von Spulak, R.

PSCD Internal Contact
Status
Completed
Point of contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Point of contact

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

Voice
Point of contact

Tan, K.

MEG Internal Contact
Resource provider

Minerals, Energy and Groundwater Division

External Contact
Spatial representation type
Topic category
  • Geoscientific information

Extent

Extent

N
S
E
W


Maintenance and update frequency
As needed

Resource format

Title

Product data repository: Various Formats

Website

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

theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf
  • EARTH SCIENCES

Project
  • EFTF

Project
  • Exploring For The Future

Keywords
  • Published_External

Instrument
  • Surface Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

Discipline
  • Geophysics

Resource constraints

Title

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence

Alternate title

CC-BY

Edition

4.0

Website

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

Access constraints
License
Use constraints
License

Resource constraints

Title

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem

Edition date
2018-11-01T00:00:00
Website

https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Classification
Unclassified
Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8

Distribution Information

Distributor contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Distributor

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

Voice
OnLine resource

Download the Record (pdf) [2 MB]

Download the Record (pdf) [2 MB]

Distribution format
  • pdf

Metadata constraints

Title

Australian Government Security Classification System

Edition date
2018-11-01T00:00:00
Website

https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Classification
Unclassified

Metadata

Metadata identifier
urn:uuid/9ed4d6ff-b2e7-4e11-b164-2fa3b6294993

Title

GeoNetwork UUID

Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8
Contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Point of contact

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

Voice
Point of contact

Tan, K.

MEG Internal Contact

Type of resource

Resource scope
Document
Name

GA publication: Record

Alternative metadata reference

Title

Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with

uuid

Citation identifier
eCatId/133982

Metadata linkage

https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/5167d912-6784-4371-9938-3931e84ca6f1

Metadata linkage

https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/9ed4d6ff-b2e7-4e11-b164-2fa3b6294993

Metadata linkage

https://ecat.ga.gov.au:80/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/9ed4d6ff-b2e7-4e11-b164-2fa3b6294993

Date info (Creation)
2019-04-08T01:55:29
Date info (Revision)
2019-04-08T01:55:29

Metadata standard

Title

AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115-1:2014

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115-3

Title

Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014

Edition

Version 2.0, September 2018

Citation identifier
https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551

 
 

Spatial extent

N
S
E
W


Keywords

EFTF Exploring For The Future Geophysics Surface Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf
EARTH SCIENCES

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