Product catalogue
Groundwater geochemistry applied to mineral exploration under cover in northern Australia
Mineral exploration in Australia faces the challenge of declining discovery rates despite continued exploration investment. The UNCOVER roadmap, developed by stakeholders from industry, government and academia, has highlighted the need for discovering mineral resources in areas of cover. In these areas, potentially prospective basement is covered by regolith, including transported sediment, challenging many traditional exploration methods designed to probe outcrop or shallow subcrop. Groundwater-mineral interaction in the subsurface has the potential to give the water geochemical and isotopic characteristics that may persist over time and space. Geoscience Australia’s hydrogeochemistry for mineral exploration project, part of the Exploring for the Future Programme, aims to use groundwater chemistry to better understand the bedrock-regolith system and develop new methods for recognising mineral system footprints within and below cover.
During the 2017 dry season (May to September), ~150 groundwater samples (including QC samples) were collected from pastoral and water supply bores in the regions of Tennant Creek and McArthur River, Northern Territory. The Tennant Creek region has a demonstrated iron oxide-hosted copper-gold-iron(-bismuth) mineral potential in the Paleoproterozoic and Mesoproterozoic basement and vast areas of regolith cover. Among the critical elements of this mineral system, the presence/absence of redox contrasts, iron enrichment, presence of sulfide minerals, and carbonaceous intervals can potentially be diagnosed by the elemental and isotopic composition of groundwater. The McArthur River region, in contrast, has demonstrated sediment-hosted stratiform lead-zinc-silver mineral potential in the Paleoproterozoic to Neoproterozoic basement and also vast areas of regolith cover. Here, critical mineral system elements that have the potential to be identified using groundwater geochemistry include the presence of felsic rocks (lead source), carbonate rocks (zinc source), basinal brines, dolomitic black shales (traps), and evaporite-rich sequences. Preliminary results will be presented and interpreted in the context of these mineral systems.
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Creation)
- 2018-06-22T00:00:00
- Date (Publication)
- 2018-06-27T06:22:32
- Date (Revision)
- 2019-04-09T01:08:53
- Citation identifier
- Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/121327
- Cited responsible party
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Author de Caritat, P.
Author Schroder, I.F.
Author Wallace, L.
- Purpose
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Presentation of initial results and novel research plan for Hydrochemistry work associated with Exploring for the Future. Abstract and poster for the Resourcing for Future Generations conference in Vancouver 2018
- Point of contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Main, P.
MEG Internal Contact Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice
- Spatial representation type
- Topic category
-
- Geoscientific information
Extent
Temporal extent
- Time period
- 2017-04-01 2018-06-01
Extent
))
- Maintenance and update frequency
- Not planned
Resource format
- Title
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Product data repository: Various Formats
- Protocol
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FILE:DATA-DIRECTORY
- Name of the resource
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Data Store directory containing the digital product files
- Description
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Data Store directory containing one or more files, possibly in a variety of formats, accessible to Geoscience Australia staff only for internal purposes
- Keywords
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groundwater
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geochemistry
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EFTF - Exploring For The Future
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exploration
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mineral
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isotope
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trace elements
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bore
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Tennant Creek
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McArthur
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IOCG
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Basin hosted
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iron oxide copper gold
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regolith
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footprint
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- Product
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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
-
4.0
- Access constraints
- License
- Use constraints
- License
Resource constraints
- Title
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Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
- 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
- OnLine resource
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Download the poster (pdf)
Download the poster (pdf)
- Distribution format
-
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pdf
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Resource lineage
- Statement
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Not supplied
- Hierarchy level
- Product
Metadata constraints
- Title
-
Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
-
urn:uuid/6742462f-3e89-45e4-b19c-4f5dc7b3c14f
- Title
-
GeoNetwork UUID
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
- Contact
-
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Owner Main, P.
MEG Internal Contact Point of contact Main, P.
MEG Internal Contact
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Document
- Name
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Conference Abstract
Alternative metadata reference
- Title
-
Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with uuid
- Citation identifier
- eCatId/121327
- Date info (Creation)
- 2025-05-08T22:18:09.128Z
- Date info (Creation)
- 2018-05-04T03:37:56
- Date info (Revision)
- 2025-05-08T22:18:27.385Z
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
-
ISO 19115-3
- Edition date
- 2015-07-01T00:00:00
- 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
- https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551