A review of mineral exploration trends, activities and discoveries in Australia in 2019-2020

This Record presents new U–Pb geochronological data, obtained via Sensitive High Resolution Ion Micro Probe (SHRIMP), from 43 samples of predominantly igneous rocks collected from the East Riverina region of the central Lachlan Orogen, New South Wales. The results presented herein correspond to the reporting period July 2016–June 2020. This work is part of an ongoing Geochronology Project, conducted by the Geological Survey of New South Wales (GSNSW) and Geoscience Australia (GA) under a National Collaborative Framework agreement, to better understand the geological evolution and mineral prospectivity of the central Lachlan Orogen in southern NSW (Bodorkos et al., 2013; 2015; 2016, 2018; Waltenberg et al., 2019).

This short film promotes Geoscience Australia's online and publicly accessible hydrogen data products. The film steps through the functionality of GA's Australian Hydrogen Opportunities Tool (AusH2), and describes the upcoming Hydrogen Economic Fairways Tool which has been created through a collaborative effort with Monash University.

This document sets out the five year strategy for the marine geoscience program at Geoscience Australia, for the period 2018-2023. This strategy delivers to Geoscience Australia's Strategy 2028 in the area of 'Managing Australia's marine jurisdictions to support sustainable use of our marine environment.' The strategy includes four key activities: (1) National Coordination of Seabed Mapping; (2) Data Acquisition for Marine and Coastal Baselines and Monitoring; (3) Marine Geoscience Data Accessibility, and; (4) Marine Geoscience Advice.

Waukarlycarly 1 is a stratigraphic well drilled in the southern part of the Canning Basin’s Waukarlycarly Embayment under Geoscience Australia’s Exploring for the Future program in collaboration with the Geological Survey of Western Australia to provide stratigraphic data for this poorly understood tectonic component. The well intersects a thin Cenozoic section, overlying Permian–Carboniferous fluvial clastics and glacial diamictites, with a thick pre-Carboniferous succession (855–2585 mRT) unconformably overlying the Neoproterozoic metasediments. Three informal siliciclastic intervals were defined based on the data from core lithology, well logs, fluid inclusions, chemical and mineral compositions; an Upper Sandstone (855–1348.1 mRT), a Middle Interval (1348.1–2443.4 mRT) and a Lower Sandstone (2443.4 –2585 mRT). The Middle Interval was further divided into six internal zones. Conventional methods were applied to interpret effective porosity, water saturation and elastic properties (Poisson’s ratio and Young’s modulus). Artificial neural network technology was employed on well logs to interpret the total organic carbon (TOC) content, pyrolysis products from the cracking of organic matter (S2), permeability, and mineral compositions. In the Upper Sandstone, average sandstone porosity and permeability are 17.9% and 464.5 mD and, 6.75 % and 10 mD in the Lower Sandstone. The Middle Interval claystone has an average porosity and permeability of 4.17 % and 0.006 mD, and average TOC content and S2 of 0.17 wt% and 0.047 mg HC/g rock with maximum values of 0.66 wt% and 0.46 mg HC/g rock. Average Poisson’s ratio and Young’s modulus of the claystone are 0.154 and 9.81 GPa. Correlations of mineral compositions, petrophysical, geomechanical and geochemical properties of the Middle Interval have been conducted. Young’s modulus and Poisson’s ratio are well correlated with the contents of key minerals, including Quartz, carbonates and TotalClay. Although TOC content is low at Waukarlycarly 1, hydrocarbon generation and migration have occurred elsewhere in the Waukarlycarly Embayment. The helium response just above the Neoproterozoic basement in the FIS profile is not associated with the hydrocarbon responses implying that these fluids have different sources.

Google has partnered with hundreds of museums, cultural institutions and archives including Geoscience Australia to host treasures from our National Mineral and Fossil Collection online on the Google Arts & Culture website. Our building's public areas have been scanned and are online via a streetview virtual tour, there are a large number of collection items uploaded which have been used to create many unique and fascinating exhibits.

Abstract submitted for presentation to European Geosciences Union General Assembly, April, 2019

This poster will present on the tools and their implementation for structured linked data at Geoscience Australia (GA). The datasets include: samples, sites, surveys, placenames. The goal is to have persistent identifiers and their profiles is governed through organisational policy with entities and relationships conceptualised in ontologies. Tools include the PID service, pyLDAPI https://github.com/RDFLib/pyLDAPI, and including current work to investigate the new content negotiation by profile – separate from media type, standardising these profiles and the expression of relationships to other features. Profile templates are implemented in entity specific pyLDAPI implementations with data transformed and delivered as standard formats and profiles, sourced from an internal, organisational point of truth – a common organisational data model with well-defined internal identifiers. Applications using these mechanisms to publish such open data at the feature level granularity and their relationships include the geoscience AusGIN portal (http://www.geoscience.gov.au/) and Location Index initiative (LOC-I).

This synthesis of geophysical results for Australia is designed to provide an summary of the character of the Australian continent through the extensive information available at the continental scale. We present a broad range of geophysical attributes for the continent nation. We also endeavour to examine the relationships between different fields, and their relations to known resources. The work represents part of a continuing collaboration between the Research School of Earth Sciences at The Australian National University and Geoscience Australia with the objective of bringing together all aspects of the structure of Australia in convenient forms. The results build on the extensive data bases assembled at Geoscience Australia, particularly for potential fields, supplemented by the full range of seismological information mostly from the Australian National University. The book builds in part on the AUSREM project sponsored by the AuScope infrastructure organisation to develop a 3-D representation of seismological structure beneath the Australian region. The diverse and extensive geophysical data sets available for Australia in part reflect the poor outcrop of bedrock geology for this ancient weathered continent and the economic importance of this geology to the Australian economy through its resource potential. Geophysics provides an important way to examine the structures that lie beneath the cover. This book is intended to make a contribution to the UNCOVER initiative, which has identified improved information on the subsurface as a prerequisite for extending exploration in Australia from regions of exposure into those with sedimentary cover. To aid in cross comparison of results from different disciplines an effort has been made to present all continental scale geophysical information with a common format and map projection. It is hoped that this compilation of the many different facets of geophysical studies of the continent will make a contribution to the understanding of Australia's lithospheric architecture and its evolution. We have not attempted to impose interpretations on the datasets, rather we believe that the diverse strands of information may inspire new ways of looking at the continent.

The Upper Burdekin Basalt extents web service delivers province extents, detailed geology, spring locations and inferred regional groundwater contours for the formations of the Nulla and McBride Basalts. This work has been carried out as part of Geoscience Australia's Exploring for the Future program.