Product catalogue
Economic Fairways Assessments across Northern Australia
Mineral exploration ideally involves researching geological potential within the constraints of economic feasibility. Nevertheless, explicit consideration of economic factors is often delayed until late in the exploration cycle. This is not ideal. Like mineral prospectivity, projected economic feasibility can be used to refine the search space and thereby reduce the risks associated with mineral exploration undercover. Here, we outline an exploration strategy based on the notion of identifying economic fairways—that is, regions permissive to resource development from an economic perspective. The approach appraises the economics of Au, Cu, Ni, Pb, Zn, potash and phosphate deposits by modelling revenue against capital expenditure (such as the costs of employment, mining overburden and access to infrastructure). We demonstrate the economic fairways approach through regional assessment of a Tennant Creek–style iron oxide–copper–gold deposit across northern Australia. Our results indicate that such a mineral deposit is expected to be economically viable across much of northern Australia, including in areas with several hundreds of metres of overburden. Our analysis sheds light on the need for accurate cover thickness models, without which undercover economic fairways cannot be defined. Our online tool benefits mineral explorers, and also helps to inform investors about the relative strengths of potential mineral projects; policy makers could use it to plan regional infrastructure development in frontier mineral provinces.
<b>Citation:</b> Haynes, M.W., Walsh, S.D.C., Czarnota, K., Northey, S.A. and Yellishetty, M., 2020. Economic fairways assessments across 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.
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Creation)
- 2020-01-24
- Date (Publication)
- 2020-06-15T01:04:33
- Citation identifier
- Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/133681
- Citation identifier
- Digital Object Identifier/http://dx.doi.org/10.11636/133681
- Cited responsible party
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Author Haynes, M.W.
Author Walsh, S.D.C.
Author Czarnota, K.
Author Northey, S.A.
Author Yellishetty, M.
- Purpose
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EFTF Extended Abstract
- Status
- Completed
- Point of contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Point of contact Haynes, M.W.
Resource provider Minerals, Energy and Groundwater Division
- Spatial representation type
- Topic category
-
- Geoscientific information
Extent
Temporal extent
- Time period
- 2020-01-01 2020-01-24
Extent
))
- Maintenance and update frequency
- As needed
Resource format
- Title
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Product data repository: Various Formats
- Website
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Data Store directory containing the digital product files
Data Store directory containing one or more files, possibly in a variety of formats, accessible to Geoscience Australia staff only for internal purposes
- theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf
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EARTH SCIENCES
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- Project
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Exploring for the Future
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- Theme
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Economics
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- Theme
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Mining
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- Keywords
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Mineral Systems
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- Keywords
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Northern Australia
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- Project
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EFTF
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- Keywords
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IOCG
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- Keywords
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Published_External
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Resource constraints
- Title
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
- Alternate title
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CC-BY
- Edition
-
4.0
- Access constraints
- License
- Use constraints
- License
Resource constraints
- Title
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Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Distribution Information
- Distributor contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Distributor Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice
- OnLine resource
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Extended Abstract for download (pdf) [580kb]
Extended Abstract for download (pdf) [580kb]
- Distribution format
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pdf
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Resource lineage
- Statement
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Using the Bluecap software library, we model the economic feasibility of iron oxide copper gold mineral deposits across northern Australia. These models incorporate publically available estimates of cover thickness, transportation infrastructure and utilities, together with calibrated mining development cost-models to appraise the life-span economics of mineral development throughout the region.
Metadata constraints
- Title
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Australian Government Security Classification System
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
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urn:uuid/4a66601c-75d4-4416-9e7e-a7145f320e4b
- Title
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GeoNetwork UUID
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
- Contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Point of contact Haynes, M.W.
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Document
- Name
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GA publication: Extended Abstract
Alternative metadata reference
- Title
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Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with
uuid
- Citation identifier
- eCatId/133681
- Date info (Creation)
- 2019-04-08T01:55:29
- Date info (Revision)
- 2019-04-08T01:55:29
Metadata standard
- Title
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AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-3
- Title
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Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014
- Edition
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Version 2.0, September 2018
- Citation identifier
- https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551