The Exploring for the Future Program (EFTF) is a $100.5 million four year, federally funded initiative to better characterise the mineral, energy and groundwater potential of northern Australia. As part of this initiative, this record presents new whole-rock geochemistry data from 967 samples of sedimentary rocks sampled from 26 wells in the South Nicholson region, including the Proterozoic South Nicholson Basin and Lawn Hill Platform, the Neoproterozoic to Devonian Georgina Basin and the Jurassic to Cretaceous Carpenteria Basin. This work complements other components of the EFTF program, including the South Nicholson Basin seismic survey, a comprehensive geochronology program and hydrocarbon prospectivity studies to better understand the geological evolution and basin architecture of the region, and facilitate identification of areas of unrecognised resource potential and prospectivity. The South Nicholson region, straddling north-eastern Northern Territory and north-western Queensland, arguably represents 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 geochemical data provide baseline understanding of regional resource prospectivity of sedimentary rocks in the South Nicholson region. During 2017 and 2018, 967 drill core and cuttings were sampled from 26 legacy boreholes that intersected the South Nicholson region housed in Northern Territory Geological Survey’s core repository in Darwin, the Geological Survey of Queensland’s core repository in Brisbane and Geoscience Australia’s core repository in Canberra. This data release contains the results of elemental analyses on these samples, which include X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF), Loss-On-Ignition (LOI), Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS) for all samples, in addition to ron titration (FeO) for selected samples. The data was generated in the Inorganic Geochemistry laboratory at Geoscience Australia between 2017 and 2019 as part of the EFTF program. All data was quality controlled based on Certified Reference Material standards (CRMs) and duplicate samples analysed with each batch of samples.

<div>Geoscience Australia's geoscientific relational databases use look-up tables to describe the data stored within. These look-ups contain, but are not limited to, information about boreholes, field geology, inorganic and organic geochemistry, hydrochemistry, geophysics, rock properties, samples and other general geological terms. These terms have then been compiled into a vocabulary of terms for publication via GA's vocabulary service. Within this vocabulary, GA references where sourced terms are published in external vocabularies with a source vocabulary URI (Uniform Resource Identifier). </div><div><br></div><div>All vocabularies, collections of concepts within vocabularies and individual concepts are identified with URI persistent identifiers of the form:</div><div>http://pid.geoscience.gov.au/def/voc/ga/{VOCABULARY-KEY}/{COLLECTION-OR-CONCEPT-NAME}</div>

This web map service delivers geochemical data for samples analysed both for inorganic and organic geochemistry. Analytical data are sourced from Geoscience Australia's Inorganic Geochemistry Database (OZCHEM) and Organic Geochemistry Database (ORGCHEM), respectively. The data are joined on a unique sample number. Inorganic geochemical data cover the majority of the periodic table, with metadata on analytical methods and detection limits. Organic geochemical data include results of pyrolysis, derivative calculated values, and, where available, isotopic composition of carbonates (D13C) and isotopic composition of rock nitrogen (D15N). Further, there are provisions for delivery of isotopic data for kerogen (H, C, N) and oxygen (O) for carbonates. Where available, sample descriptions include stratigraphic unit names and ages, and lithology. Location information includes coordinates of the sampled feature (eg, borehole), coordinates of the sample and sample depth. Interpretation of the combined inorganic and organic geochemistry for organic-rich shales will facilitate comprehensive characterisation of hydrocarbons source rocks and mineral commodities source and trap environments. All are achieved within the frameworks of petroleum and mineral systems analysis. The initial data delivered by this service include 1785 samples from 35 boreholes from 14 geological provinces, including recently released data for 442 samples from the South Nicholson National Drilling Initiative Carrara 1 stratigraphic drill hole (Butcher et al., 2021; Carson et al., 2021). Many sampled boreholes are located within the polygon of the Exploring for the Future Barkly-Isa-Georgetown project. This dataset will be updated periodically as more data become available.

This web feature service delivers geochemical data for samples analysed both for inorganic and organic geochemistry. Analytical data are sourced from Geoscience Australia's Inorganic Geochemistry Database (OZCHEM) and Organic Geochemistry Database (ORGCHEM), respectively. The data are joined on a unique sample number. Inorganic geochemical data cover the majority of the periodic table, with metadata on analytical methods and detection limits. Organic geochemical data include results of pyrolysis, derivative calculated values, and, where available, isotopic composition of carbonates (D13C) and isotopic composition of rock nitrogen (D15N). Further, there are provisions for delivery of isotopic data for kerogen (H, C, N) and oxygen (O) for carbonates. Where available, sample descriptions include stratigraphic unit names and ages, and lithology. Location information includes coordinates of the sampled feature (eg, borehole), coordinates of the sample and sample depth. Interpretation of the combined inorganic and organic geochemistry for organic-rich shales will facilitate comprehensive characterisation of hydrocarbons source rocks and mineral commodities source and trap environments. All are achieved within the frameworks of petroleum and mineral systems analysis. The initial data delivered by this service include 1785 samples from 35 boreholes from 14 geological provinces, including recently released data for 442 samples from the South Nicholson National Drilling Initiative Carrara 1 stratigraphic drill hole (Butcher et al., 2021; Carson et al., 2021). Many sampled boreholes are located within the polygon of the Exploring for the Future Barkly-Isa-Georgetown project. This dataset will be updated periodically as more data become available.

The Geoscience Australia (GA) Inorganic Geochemistry database (GEOCHEM) contains chemical analyses and analytical metadata from rocks and regolith materials. The majority of analysed samples are from mapping and sampling programs in Australia by GA and its predecessor organisations (BMR, AGSO), along with a considerable collection from the Australian Antarctic Territory. A small number of analyses exist from Papua New Guinea and offshore sampling programs. The data set is currently used for internal GA consumption and is served off an application within the GA portal. As an enhancement, this data would be altered in terms of its structure adding more information out of such analyses. In addition, the data would me made compliant following GGIC standards. The data would be published within internal GA as well as to external third parties, through OGC web services viz. WMS and WFS.