Funded by the Australian Government's Onshore Energy Security Program the Pine Creek airborne electromagnetic (AEM) survey was flown over the Pine Creek Orogen and parts of the McArthur, Victoria River and Daly Basins in the Northern Territory between August 2008 and 24th May 2009. The survey comprises three survey areas: Kombolgie, east of Kakadu National Park; Woolner Granite, near Darwin; and, Rum Jungle, west of Kakadu National Park. The Pine Creek survey was the second regional AEM survey flown in Australia. The survey cost of $3 745 000 included a 29 900 line km flown at various line spacings (555m, 1666m and 5000m) and covered approximately 74 000 km2. The Woolner Granite and Rum Jungle survey areas were flown by Fugro Airborne Surveys Pty. Ltd. (FAS), for Geoscience Australia (GA), using the TEMPESTTM time-domain AEM system. The Kombolgie survey area was flown by Geotech Airborne Pty. Ltd VTEMTM time-domain AEM system. The Pine Creek AEM survey was designed to deliver reliable, pre-competitive AEM data to promote exploration for uranium, copper-gold, base metals, tin and nickel in both brownfields and greenfields areas. The survey area hosts several uranium deposits, including the Ranger Uranium Mine, Rum Jungle and Nabarlek.

Provides an overview of the Project in the context of the Onshore Energy Security Program in advance of the presentations dealing with the acquisition, data, procedures and interpretation results of the survey.

Airborne electromagnetic (AEM) data are being acquired by Geoscience Australia (GA) under the Australian Government's Onshore Energy Security Program (OESP) in areas considered to have potential for uranium or thorium mineralisation. In contrast to deposit-scale investigations carried out by industry these surveys are designed to reveal new geological information at a regional scale. The Frome AEM survey shown in Figure 1 was flown by Fugro Airborne Surveys for GA, using the TEMPESTTM time-domain system. The survey was conducted with the aims of reducing exploration risk, stimulating exploration investment and enhancing prospectivity within the region primarily for uranium, but also for other commodities including copper, gold, silver, lead, zinc, iron ore and potable groundwater. The Frome AEM survey was primarily designed to be a regional mapping program for mapping surface and subsurface geological features that may be associated with sandstone-hosted uranium systems. The data are also capable of being interpreted for landscape evolution studies within the flanks of the tectonically active Curnamona Province and Flinders Ranges of South Australia. In this article we present an enhanced set of conductivity estimates which are now available from the GA website free of charge. These conductivity estimates reveal new geological information

During 2008 and 2009, and under the Australian Government's Onshore Energy Security Initiative, Geoscience Australia acquired airborne electromagnetic (AEM) data over the Pine Creek Orogen of the Northern Territory. The survey area was split into three areas for acquisition. VTEM data was acquired in the Kombolgie area east of Kakadu National Park (this data set) between August and November 2008. TEMPEST data was acquired west of Kakadu National Park with the area split in two to facilitate the use of two aircraft: the Woolner Granite area in the north was acquired between October and December 2008; and the Rum Jungle area adjoining to the south, was acquired between October 2008 and May 2009. The main purpose of the surveys was to provide additional geophysical / geological context for unconformity style uranium mineral systems and thereby promote related exploration. The survey data will also provide information on depth to Proterozoic/Archean basement, which is of general interest to explorers, and will be used as an input into ground water studies in the region. The data are available in two parts: - Part A, which consists of Grids (4MB) + Multiplots (85MB) + Report (8MB) + Waveform (43 MB) is available as a free download - Part B, which consists of Part A [Grids (4MB) + Multiplots (85MB) + Report (8MB) + Waveform (43 MB)] plus Line data. Together they are too large for web downloading and therefore Part B is only available, on DVD.

In 2007 a RESOLVE frequency domain airborne electromagnetic survey was flown over and adjacent to a stretch of the River Murray along the western border separating Victoria and New South Wales, Australia. The survey was commissioned by the Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry through the Bureau of Rural Sciences and funded under the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality.

In 2001, the Murray Darling Basin Commission (MDBC) funded a survey to collect airborne electromagnetic (AEM) datasets for Billabong Creek (GA Project # 904) under MDBC's Strategic Investigations and Education (SI&E) Program, as part of Airborne Geophysics - SI&E Project D2018. The project was a pilot testing the relevance of airborne geophysics data for salinity management, and evolved from the National Geophysics Project originally sponsored under the National Dryland Salinity Program. The data are now being publicly released through Geoscience Australia's National Airborne Geophysics Database.

The Pine Creek airborne electromagnetic (AEM) survey is the largest undertaken in the Northern Territory to date, covering an area of 74,000km squared (roughly the size of Tasmania). Funded by the Australian Government's Onshore Energy Security Program at Geoscience Australia the survey was flown over the Pine Creek Orogen and parts of the McArthur, Victoria River and Daly Basins in the Northern Territory during 2008 and 2009 to enhance exploration for uranium and other mineral systems. Flight lines spaced at 1666m and 5000m were flown over several uranium deposits, including Whites, Dyson, Ranger and Nabarlek, as well as uranium prospects, including Thunderball. The Pine Creek survey comprises three areas: Kombolgie, east of Kakadu National Park; Woolner Granite, near Darwin; and Rum Jungle west of Kakadu National Park. The TEMPEST fixed wing AEM system was used to acquire data in the Woolner Granite and Rum Jungle survey areas. The TEMPEST survey data were publicly released by Geoscience Australia in July and September 2009, respectively. The VTEM helicopter AEM system was used in the Kombolgie survey area and those data were publicly released by Geoscience Australia in December 2009. Nine companies contributed financially to fly detailed areas within the Geoscience Australia funded lines at closer line spacings. Many more industry partners provided important drill hole information, historical EM datasets and access to cased holes for essential conductivity logging. All company infill AEM data will be released to the public domain in December 2010.

<p>The Southern Thomson Orogen VTEMplus® Airborne Electromagnetic Survey was conducted by Geoscience Australia as part of a collaborative project with its partners the Geological Survey of New South Wales and the Geological Survey of Queensland. The Survey contributes to the Australian Academy of Science's UNCOVER Initiative and Geoscience Australia's response to this as part of the National Mineral Exploration Strategy. Geoscience Australia contracted Geotech Airborne Ltd to acquire VTEMplus® airborne electromagnetic (AEM) data over part of the Southern Thomson Orogen in Queensland and New South Wales in April and May 2014. The data were also processed by Geotech Airborne Ltd using its FullWaveForm® processing techniques. <p>The survey is designed to assess the under-cover geology and prospectivity of the Southern Thomson Orogen around Hungerford and Eulo and straddles the New South Wales-Queensland border. The survey comprises two parts: <p>1. A regular regional survey on 5000 m spaced east-west flight lines totalling 3352 line km and covering an area of 16 261 km2. <p>2. Two regional traverses adjacent to roads totalling 915 line km. <p>The Southern Thomson Orogen is a priority area for mineral systems research. Much of the area lies underneath cover of sedimentary basins and is a poorly-understood element of Australia's geology. The Orogen contains Cambro-Ordovician rocks that have potential for Iron Oxide Copper-Gold (IOCG) resources, porphyry copper-gold and Volcanic-Hosted Massive Sulphide (VHMS) deposits. Survey data will add to knowledge of cover thickness and character and will inform future geological mapping in the region. <p>Previously Released Data (Phase 1) <p>In August 2014 the processed data from the Southern Thomson Orogen VTEMplus® AEM Survey were released in the Phase 1 data release package that is available free of charge from Geoscience Australia's web site (see https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/81852). The Phase 1 package includes the final processed electromagnetic data, waveform files, multiplots, conductivity estimates from the EM Flow® conductivity depth imaging algorithm, and an operations and processing report, all produced by the contractor Geotech Airborne Ltd. <p>Current Release (Phase 2) <p>This Phase 2 data release package contains results from the electromagnetic inversion of the data in the Phase 1 release. The inversion results were generated using two different types of algorithm, a deterministic regularized gradient based algorithm, which we call GALEISBS (Roach, 2010), and a reversible-jump Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm, which we call GArjMcMC (Brodie and Sambridge, 2012; Brodie and Reid, 2013). Both algorithms assume a layered earth or 1D conductivity structure. Each airborne electromagnetic sounding is inverted independently and the results are then stitched into combined sections. <p>The deterministic GALEISBS inversion products are available for download in four logical parts based on the type of derived product. These are zipped into the following four files: <p>1. galeisbs_point_located_data.zip <p>2. galeisbs_sections.zip <p>3. galeisbs_georeferenced_sections.zip <p>4. galeisbs_gocad_sgrids.zip <p>The stochastic GArjMcMC inversion products are available for download in five logical parts based on the type of derived product. These are zipped into the following five files; <p>1. rjmcmc_point_located_data.zip <p>2. rjmcmc_sections.zip <p>3. rjmcmc_georeferenced_sections.zip <p>4. rjmcmc_gocad_sgrids.zip <p>5. rjmcmc_probability_map_plots.zip

The Frome airborne electromagnetic (AEM) survey was designed to provide reliable pre-competitive AEM data to aid the search for energy and mineral resources around the Lake Frome region of South Australia. Flown in 2010, a total of 32,317 line kilometres of high quality airborne geophysical data were collected over an area of 95,450 km2 at a flight line spacing mostly of 2.5 km, opening to 5 km spaced lines in the Marree-Strzelecki Desert area to the north. The Lake Frome region hosts a large number of sandstone-hosted uranium deposits with known resources of ~60,000 tonnes of U3O8 including the working In Situ Recovery (ISR) operations at Beverley, Pepegoona, Pannikin and Honeymoon, and deposits at Four Mile East, Four Mile West, Yagdlin, Goulds Dam, Oban and Junction Dam. The aims of the Frome AEM Survey were to map critical elements of sandstone-hosted uranium mineral systems including basin architecture, palaeovalley morphology, sedimentary facies changes, hydrological connections between uranium sources and uranium sinks and structures that may control uranium mineralisation. Interpretations of the data show the utility of regional AEM surveying for mapping sandstone-hosted uranium mineral systems as well as for mapping geological surfaces and depth of cover over a wide area. Data from the Frome AEM Survey allow mineral explorers to put their own high-resolution AEM surveys into a regional context. Survey data were used to map a range of geological features that are associated with, or control the location of, sandstone-hosted uranium mineral systems and have been used to map and assess the prospectivity of new areas to the north of the Flinders Ranges.

During 2007 and 2008 and under the Australian Government's Onshore Energy Security Initiative, Geoscience Australia acquired airborne electromagnetic (AEM) data over the Paterson Province of Western Australia. The main purpose of the survey was to provide additional geophysical/geological context for unconformity and palaeochannel style uranium mineral systems and thereby promote related exploration. The survey data will also provide information on depth to basement, which is of general interest to explorers, and will be used as an input into a ground water evaluation of the region.