The Exploring for the Future Project Areas web service depicts the spatial extents of project work undertaken as part of Geoscience Australia's $100.5 million initiative dedicated to boosting investment in resource exploration in Australia. Each project area extent has been generated by aggregating all project work sites into an envelope polygon. An indicative spend on each f the projects is also given.

Long-period magnetotelluric (MT) data allow geoscientists to investigate the link between mineralisation and lithospheric-scale features and processes. In particular, the highly conductive structures imaged by MT data appear to map the pathways of large-scale palaeo-fluid migration, the identification of which is an important element of several mineral system models. Given the importance of these data, governments and academia have united under the Australian Lithospheric Architecture Magnetotelluric Project (AusLAMP) to collect long-period MT data across the continent on a ~55 km-spaced grid. Here, we use AusLAMP data to demonstrate the MT method as a regional-scale tool to identify and select prospective areas for mineral exploration undercover. We focus on the region between Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory and east of Mount Isa in Queensland. Our results image major conductive structures up to 150 km deep in the lithosphere, such as the Carpentaria Conductivity Anomaly east of Mount Isa. This anomaly is a significant lithospheric-scale conductivity structure that shows spatial correlations with a major suture zone and known iron oxide–copper–gold deposits. Our results also identify similar features in several under-explored areas that are now considered to be prospective for mineral discovery. These observations provide a powerful means of selecting frontier regions for mineral exploration undercover.. <b>Citation:</b> Duan, J., Kyi, D., Jiang, W. and Costelloe, M., 2020. AusLAMP: imaging the Australian lithosphere for resource potential, an example from northern Australia. In: Czarnota, K., Roach, I., Abbott, S., Haynes, M., Kositcin, N., Ray, A. and Slatter, E. (eds.) Exploring for the Future: Extended Abstracts, Geoscience Australia, Canberra, 1–4.

Developing Northern Australia Map produced on request for the Office of Northern Australia. It highlights development in northern Australia, indicating major mineral and energy resource projects, mineral deposits, and major infrastructure. It also incorporates data from other Government agencies, providing key information used to inform decision makers in the region such as environmental data, location of indigenous communities, native title determinations, and indigenous land use agreements.

<p>Understanding the geological evolution and resource prospectivity of a region relies heavily on the integration of different geological and geophysical datasets. Geochronology is one key dataset, as it underpins meaningful geological correlations across large regions, and also contributes to reconstruction of past tectonic settings. Using geochronology in combination with other datasets requires the geochronology data to be available in a unified dataset with a consistent format. Northern Australia is a vast and relatively underexplored area that offers enormous potential for the discovery of mineral and energy resources. The area has a long and variably complex tectonic history, which is yet to be fully understood. Numerous geochronology studies have been completed at various scales throughout northern Australia over several decades; however, these data are scattered amongst numerous sources, limiting the ease with which they can be used collectively. <p>The objective of this work is: <p>(1) to combine Uranium–Lead (U–Pb) data across north-northeastern Australia into one consistent dataset, and <p>(2) to visualise the temporal and spatial distribution of the U–Pb age data through thematic maps as a tool for better understanding the geological evolution and resource potential of northern Australia. <p>In this contribution, over 2000 U–Pb ages from the Northern Territory, Queensland, eastern Western Australia and northern South Australia have been compiled into a single, consistent dataset. Data were sourced from Geoscience Australia, State and Territory geological surveys and from academic literature. The compilation presented here includes age data from igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks. Thematic maps of magmatic crystallisation ages, high-grade metamorphic ages and sedimentary maximum depositional ages have been generated using the dataset. These maps enable spatial and temporal trends in the rock record to be visualised up to semi-continental scale and form a component of the ‘Isotopic Atlas’ of northern Australia currently being compiled by Geoscience Australia.

The Australian Lithospheric Architecture Magnetotelluric Project (AusLAMP) aims to collect long period magnetotelluric data on a half degree grid across the Australian continent. Data were collected in northern Australia under Geoscience Australia’s Exploring for the Future (EFTF) program from 2016 to 2019. This survey covers the area in south parts of Northern Territory and north western region of Queensland. The project aims to improve understanding of the lithospheric structure in northern Australia. It also provide pre-competitive data and knowledge for selecting mineral prospective areas in the under-explored and covered regions. This data package contains the preferred resistivity model and associated information for the project. The report provides details for data acquisition, data process and data inversion. The results provide new insights on the lithospheric architecture and mineral potential in the region.

<p>Geoscience Australia (GA) generated a series of gravity and magnetic grids and enhancements covering Northern Australia. Several derivative gravity datasets have been generated 1) for the North-West Shield Western Australia region (approximately between latitudes 7‒26⁰ S and longitudes 110‒130⁰ E), 2) for the Northern Territory (approximately between latitudes 7‒26⁰ S and longitudes 125.5‒141⁰ E) and for Queensland (approximately between latitudes 7‒30⁰ S and longitudes 135‒160⁰ E). The magnetic dataset has been generated only for the North-West Shield Western Australia region (approximately between latitudes 7‒26⁰ S and longitudes 110‒130⁰ E). The magnetic and gravity data were downloaded from the Geophysical Archive Data Delivery System (GADDS), website (http://www.geoscience.gov.au/cgi-bin/mapserv?map=/nas/web/ops/prod/apps/mapserver/gadds/wms_map/gadds.map&mode=browse). Satellite Free-air (FA) gravity v27.1 (released March 11, 2019) and Satellite Topography v19.1 (released January 14, 2019) data were sourced from Sandwell et al. (2014) and downloaded from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), U.S. Navy and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) (SIO Satellite Geodesy, website, http://topex.ucsd.edu/WWW_html/mar_grav.html). The Satellite Bouguer gravity grid with onshore correction density of 2.67 gcm-3 and offshore correction density of 2.20 gcm-3 was derived from the Free-air gravity v27.1 and Topography data V19.1. This Bouguer gravity grid was used for filling areas of data gaps in the offshore region. <p>Data evaluation and processing of gravity and magnetic data available in the area of interest resulted in the production of stitched onshore-offshore Bouguer gravity grid derived from offshore satellite Bouguer gravity grid and GA’s onshore ground and airborne gravity survey data and a stitched Total Magnetic Intensity (TMI) grid derived from airborne and shipborne surveys (Tables 1 and 5). A Reduction to the Pole (RTP) grid was derived from the stitched TMI grid. The TMI, RTP, FA and terrain corrected Bouguer gravity anomalies are standard datasets for geological analysis. The free-air gravity anomaly provides the raw and basic gravity information. Images of free-air gravity are useful for first-pass interpretation and the data is used for gravity modelling. Magnetic anomalies provide information on numerous magnetic sources, including deep sources as arising from the structure and composition of magnetic basement and shallow sources such as intra-sedimentary magnetic units (e.g. volcanics, intrusions, and magnetic sedimentary layers). A standard TMI image will contain information from all these sources. Geosoft Oasis montaj software was used throughout the data processing and enhancement procedure and the montaj GridKnit module was used to generate the stitched gravity and magnetic grids. <p>Enhancement techniques have been applied to the final processed Bouguer gravity and RTP magnetic grids to highlight subtle features from various sources and to separate anomalies from different source depths. These enhancement techniques are described in the next section. <p>Enhancement processing techniques and results <p>A summary of image processing techniques used to achieve various outcomes is described in Table 1. <p>Data type Filter applied Enhancement/outcome <p>Gravity/Magnetic First vertical derivative (1VD) Near surface features (e.g. intrabasinal) <p>Gravity/Magnetic Upward continuation Noise reduction in data <p>Gravity/Magnetic Low pass filter, or large distance upward continuation Enhancement of deep features (e.g. basement) <p>Gravity/Magnetic High pass filter Enhancement of shallow features (e.g. surface anomalies) <p>Gravity/Magnetic Tilt filter and 1VD Enhancement of structure (e.g. in basement) <p>Gravity/Magnetic ZS-Edgezone and ZS-Edge filters Enhancement of edges <p>Gravity/Magnetic horizontal modulus / horizontal gradient Enhancement of boundaries <p>Magnetic RTP (reduction to the pole), Compound Anomaly, and Analytic Signal filter Accurate location of sources

This report provides a preliminary assessment of the utility of a satellite remote sensing approach for the identification and characterisation of coastal habitats that are critical for threatened and migratory species in northern Australia. This work is part of the Habitats research theme in the A12 Northern Seascapes Scoping Project. The Australian Landsat archive in the Digital Earth Australia (DEA) analysis platform for satellite imagery was utilised to demonstrate its potential for mapping intertidal areas and mangrove extent, and changes over time in the extent of coastal landforms and habitats. Seven estuaries were examined, Darwin Harbour and the Keep, Daly, Roper, Macarthur, Flinders and Gilbert River estuaries. The estuaries were selected by the A12 Project team because they are known to provide important areas for the species of interest. Features of importance to shorebird populations were a focus. The focus of this scoping work was to utilise the DEA Landsat archive to build understanding of the effects of tidal dynamics on intertidal habitats across this region of large and complex tides, examine approaches to mapping the extent of key coastal habitats, and test the potential of the archive to detect coastal habitat change, in particular mangrove. In northern Australia, cloud interference can make it difficult to obtain clear satellite imagery. To avoid this issue, the geometric median of surface reflectance values was used to produce crisp, cloud-free composite images that depict the maximum observed tidal extent in the seven estuaries. Tide-tagging of satellite imagery was also successfully employed to allow any tide induced change to be removed from change-detection analyses and clearly depict the intertidal extent. Application of the Intertidal Extent Model in the DEA enabled the extent and morphology of estuarine intertidal environments to be mapped. The DEA also enabled habitat change change detection using the fully processed, high density, three decade long Landsat time series. The results clearly depict the dynamic nature of some areas, including large-scale rapid island growth and mangrove expansion (e.g. Keep River and Gilbert River estuaries), gradual long-term expansion of mangrove (Flinders River and McArthur River estuaries), and estuaries with areas of rapid recent die back of mangrove (Roper River and Flinders estuaries). This information is important for the management of key species as well decisions around coastal developments. With Landsat and new satellite data streams (e.g. Sentinal 2) continually being added to the DEA, this time-series analysis approach could be developed into an effective habitat extent and condition monitoring tool for northern Australia. The image products and analysis tools employed in this study demonstrate the potential utility of DEA for mapping the extent and dynamics of key coastal and estuarine habitats utilised by threatened and migratory species. To better inform the management of these species, a key next step in this approach is to utilise ground-validation data to enable these habitats to be robustly classified and quantified using the Landsat archive. This analysis should provide important baseline information and enable the extent and condition of key habitats to be monitored. <b>Preferred Citation:</b> <i>Phillips, C., Lymburner, L. & Brooke, B. (2018). Characterising northern estuaries using Digital Earth Australia.</i> Report to the National Environmental Science Programme, Marine Biodiversity Hub. <i>Geoscience Australia.</i>

<div>Alluvial sediments have long been used in geochemical surveys as their compositions are assumed to be representative of areas upstream. Overbank and floodplain sediments, in particular, are increasingly used for regional to continental-scale geochemical mapping. However, during downstream transport, sediments from heterogeneous source regions are carried away from their source regions and mixed. Consequently, using alluvial sedimentary geochemical data to generate continuous geochemical maps remains challenging. In this study we demonstrate a technique that numerically unmixes alluvial sediments to make a geochemical map of their upstream catchments. The unmixing approach uses a model that predicts the concentration of elements in downstream sediments, given a map of the drainage network and element concentrations in the source region. To unmix sedimentary chemistry, we seek the upstream geochemical map that, when mixed downstream, best fits geochemical observations downstream. To prevent overfitting we penalise the roughness of the geochemical model. To demonstrate our approach we apply it to alluvial samples gathered as part of the Northern Australia Geochemical Survey. This survey gathered samples collected over a ∼ 500,000 km2 area in northern Australia. We first validate our approach for this sample distribution with synthetic tests, which indicate that we can resolve geochemical variability at scales greater than 0.5 – 1◦ in size. We proceed to invert real geochemical data from the total digestion of fine-grained fraction of alluvial sediments. The resulting geochemical maps for two elements of potential economic interest, Cu and Nd, are evaluated in detail. We find that in both cases, our predicted downstream concentrations match well against a held-out, unseen subset of the data, as well as against data from an independent geochemical survey. By performing principal component analysis on maps generated for all 46 available elements we produce a synthesis map showing the significant geochemical domains of this part of northern Australia. This map shows strong spatial similarities to the underlying lithological map of the area. Finally, we compare the results from our approach to a geochemical map produced by kriging. We find that, unlike the method presented here, kriging generates geochemical maps that are both dampened relative to expected magnitude, as well as being spatially distorted. We argue that the unmixing approach is the most appropriate method for generating geochemical maps from regional-scale alluvial surveys.&nbsp;</div> <b>Citation:</b> Alex G. Lipp, Patrice de Caritat, Gareth G. Roberts, Geochemical mapping by unmixing alluvial sediments: An example from northern Australia, <i>Journal of Geochemical Exploration,</i> Volume 248, <b>2023</b>, 107174, ISSN 0375-6742, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gexplo.2023.107174. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0375674223000213)

<p>Australia has a significant number of surface sediment geochemical surveys that have been undertaken by industry and government during the past 50 years. These surveys represent a vast investment, but up to now have been used in isolation from one another. The key to maximising the full potential of these data and the information they provide for mineral exploration, environmental management and agricultural purposes is using all surveys together, seamlessly. These geochemical surveys have not only sampled various landscape elements but have used multiple analytical techniques, instrumentation and laboratories. The geochemical data from these surveys need to be levelled to eliminate, as much as possible, non-geological variation. Using a variety of methodologies, including reanalysis of both international standards and small subsets of samples from previous surveys, we have created a seamless surface geochemical map for northern Australia, from nine surveys with 15605 samples. We tested our approach using two surveys from the southern Thomson Orogen, which removed interlaboratory and other analytical variation. Creation of the new combined and levelled northern Australian dataset paves the way for the application of statistical techniques, such as principal component analysis and machine learning, which maximise the value of these legacy data holdings. The methodology documented here can be applied to additional geochemical datasets that become available. <p><b>Citation:</b> Main, P. T. and Champion, D. C., 2020. Geochemistry of the North Australian Craton: piecing it together. In: Czarnota, K., Roach, I., Abbott, S., Haynes, M., Kositcin, N., Ray, A. and Slatter, E. (eds.) Exploring for the Future: Extended Abstracts, Geoscience Australia, Canberra, 1–4.

Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) is a development financier to infrastructure projects in the Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia and the Australian Indian Ocean Territories. NAIF’s mission is to be an innovative financing partner in the growth of northern Australia. A key focus of any financing is to drive public benefit, economic, population growth, and Indigenous involvement in northern Australia. This NAIF dataset contains the limit and extent of Northern Australia as defined in the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility Act 2016 including the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility Amendment (Extension and Other Measures) Bill 2021 and the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2023. This is a maintained dataset and is kept updated to reflect any amendments to the legislation. The definition in the Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility Act 2016 states that Northern Australia means the area that includes the following: </div><div>&nbsp; (a)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;the Northern Territory; </div><div>&nbsp; (b)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;the areas of Queensland and Western Australia that are North of the Tropic of Capricorn </div><div>&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;other than the Meekatharra Statistical Area level 2; </div><div>&nbsp; (c)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;the areas South of the Tropic of Capricorn of each Statistical Area level 2 that has an area </div><div>&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;covered by paragraph&nbsp;(b); </div><div>&nbsp; (d)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;the following Statistical Areas level 2:&nbsp; </div><div>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(i)&nbsp;Gladstone; </div><div>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; (ii)&nbsp;Gladstone Hinterland; </div><div>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;(iii)&nbsp;Carnarvon;</div><div>(da)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;the Territory of Christmas Island; </div><div>(db)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;the Territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands; </div><div>&nbsp; (e)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;the Local Government Areas of Meekatharra and Wiluna (despite paragraph&nbsp;(b)); </div><div>(ea)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;the Local Government Area of Ngaanyatjarraku; </div><div>&nbsp; (f)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;the territorial sea adjacent to areas covered by paragraphs&nbsp;(a) to (db).</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div>