The Exploring for the Future (EFTF) Program is a multiyear, federally funded initiative to better characterise the mineral, energy and groundwater resource potential across Australia. As part of this initiative, this data record presents mineral fluid inclusion data from two sample from the South Nicholson region. The South Nicholson region straddles north-eastern Northern Territory and north-western Queensland, and prior to the EFTF program, arguably represented 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 fluid inclusion data provide information on sedimentary and volcanic rocks in the South Nicholson region that complement other components of the EFTF program, including the South Nicholson Basin and Barkly seismic surveys, comprehensive geochronology and geochemical programs, hydrocarbon prospectivity studies and other extensive regional geophysical surveys to better understand the geological evolution and basin architecture of northern Australia. The primary objective of the program is to facilitate identification of areas of unrecognised resource potential and prospectivity and encourage and stimulate ‘greenfield’ resource exploration. This record presents new fluid inclusion data from two outcrop samples: a) siliceous hydrothermal ‘white smoker’ pipes within the ca. 1660–1630 Ma Buddycurrawa Volcanics (Benmara Group, Benmara region) and b) feeder veinlets of a manganese oxide occurrence in the Carrara Range and hosted within the late Paleoproterozoic Plain Creek Formation (McNamara Group). Both samples are from the MOUNT DRUMMOND 1:250 000 map-sheet, north-eastern Northern Territory and were collected as part of EFTF helicopter-based field operations and ground mapping during May 2018.

Proterozoic rocks of the South Nicholson region, straddling the north-eastern Northern Territory and north-western Queensland, are juxtaposed between the Mount Isa Province and the McArthur Basin. Whereas the latter two provinces are well-studied and highly prospective for energy and mineral resources, the geological evolution and resource potential of the South Nicholson region, until recently, remained largely unevaluated. Geoscience Australia, under the Exploring for the Future (EFTF) initiative (2016–2020), in collaboration with State and Territory Geological Surveys, conducted a range of regional and targeted geoscience investigations across the South Nicholson region to better understand the resource potential, and to encourage greenfield resource exploration. Poster presented at the 2021 Australian Earth Sciences Convention (AESC)