This web map service provides location information and details about commodities exported from shipping ports around Australia. This dataset has been collated by Geoscience Australia from publicly available information as a guide only.

This map shows the locations of mines operating at the end of 2016, developing mines and mineral deposits in Australia. Developing mines are deposits with a proven minable resource and where mines site development has commenced or where a decision to mine has been announced. Mineral deposits highlight areas of know mineralisation with a proven or probable resource, that are not currently being mined or developed. Closed mines or mines not operating at the end of 2016 are not shown.

This GIS dataset provides location information and details about commodities exported from shipping ports around Australia. This dataset has been collated by Geoscience Australia from publicly available information as a guide only.

<div>The study utilised Geoscience Australia’s vast data collection of mineral occurrences to identify the range of historical discoveries within the Officer-Musgrave, Darling-Curnamona - Delameian and Barkly - Isa - Georgetown Deep Dive areas. A literature review shed light on exploration discovery methods, commodity grades, exploration histories and deposit types. Many critical mineral occurrences were overlooked or ignored in the past, as the commodity discovered was not of interest or value at the time, or grades were regarded as sub-economic. However, with modern methods of mining, ore treatment techniques and increased demand, reassessment could now provide new opportunities.</div>

Publicly available geological data in the Cooper Basin region are compiled to produce statements of existing knowledge for natural hydrogen, hydrogen storage, coal and mineral occurrences. This web service summarises mineral potential in the Cooper Basin region.

Publicly available geological data in the Cooper Basin region are compiled to produce statements of existing knowledge for natural hydrogen, hydrogen storage, coal and mineral occurrences. This web service summarises mineral potential in the Cooper Basin region.

<div>Mineral exploration and development involves the selection of potential projects which must be evaluated across disparate characteristics. However, the distinct metrics involved are typically difficult to reconcile (e.g. geological potential, environmental impact, jobs created, value generated, etc.). Separate stakeholders—with different goals and attitudes—will reasonably differ in their preferences as to which categories to prioritize and how much weight to give to each. These conflicting preferences can obscure optimal outcomes and confound project selection.</div><div><br></div><div>In this presentation, we will discuss how early-stage exploration decisions can be treated as multi-criteria optimization problems. We show how this approach can be used to effectively evaluate and communicate competing criteria, and locate regions that perform best under a range of different metrics. We then outline a mapping framework that identifies regions that perform best in terms of geological potential, economic value and environmental impact and demonstrate this approach in a real-word example that highlights new exploration targets in the Australian context. Abstract presented at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting 2023 (AGU23) https://www.agu.org/fall-meeting

Magmatic mineral deposits of nickel, copper and the platinum-group elements (Ni-Cu-PGE) form by the immiscible separation and concentration of Ni-Cu-PGE-rich sulfide liquids from magmas of mantle origin. An important sub-type of these deposits is the tholeiitic intrusion-hosted Ni-Cu-PGE sulfide deposit class, typified by the giant Noril'sk (Russia), Voisey's Bay (Canada) and Jinchuan (China) deposits. These contribute significant proportions of the world's production of Ni and PGEs, and represent some of the most valuable mineral deposits on Earth. However, there are very few known tholeiitic intrusion-hosted Ni-Cu-PGE sulfide deposits in Australia, and these are mostly uneconomic due to small size, low grade and/or remoteness. This continental-scale study of the potential for tholeiitic intrusion-hosted Ni-Cu-PGE sulfide deposits in Australia addresses the problem of whether the apparent under-representation of resources of this type in Australia is due to lack of geological endowment or is a consequence of concealment of mineral deposits by sediments, basins and regolith (cover) which has hindered exploration success. This study is the first continental-scale assessment of Ni-Cu-PGE mineral potential of Australia to apply a knowledge-driven GIS-based prospectivity analysis method. A mineral systems approach is used to identify new mineral provinces as well as extensions to known provinces with potential to host giant or major Ni-Cu-PGE sulfide deposits. Major Ni-Cu-PGE sulfide deposits are consequences of lithospheric-scale earth processes, and form where there was a coincidence of ore-forming processes in space and time. Ore formation required four components of the mineral systems to have operated efficiently, namely: (1) energy sources or drivers of the ore-forming system; (2) crustal and mantle lithospheric architecture; (3) sources of ore metals (i.e., Ni, Cu, PGE in this study); and (4) gradients in ore depositional physico-chemical parameters. Conceptual criteria were developed that represent essential geological processes involved in each of the four components of the mineral system. These were translated into practical, mappable, criteria for which proxy geoscientific datasets were developed. Maps of favourability were constructed for each of the four system components. These were created using overlays of input rasters that were weighted (using a fuzzy logic-based method) according to the perceived importance, applicability and confidence level of each input dataset in the mineral system analysis. The results for the four maps were allowed to contribute equally to the final mineral potential map so that the areas of highest potential represent targets where all four mineral system components combine most favourably. The assessment predicts high potential for tholeiitic intrusion-hosted Ni-Cu-PGE sulfide deposits in a wide range of geological regions of Australia, including those of known prospectivity and several with previously unrecognised potential. Importantly, the districts hosting the few known major intrusion-hosted Ni-Cu-PGE sulfide deposits were successfully predicted with high potential, despite non-inclusion of these deposits as inputs in the modelling (to avoid biasing the results). In addition to the Geoscience Australia Record, the results of the study are available as a series of Geodatabase digital maps (rasters). The Python programming script used in the GIS analysis is also available online (Coghlan, 2015. Finally, the primary digital data used to create the input datasets for the modelling are available on-line for users' own purposes.

This release describes the geochemical methods and procedures used to acquire geochemical data as part of the Stavely Project. Data presented in this release include whole rock geochemistry, four acid digestion analysis, partial extraction techniques (soil gas hydrocarbon, Mobile Metal IonTM, Ionic LeachTM), sulphur isotope analysis, neodymium isotope analysis, lead isotope analysis, chromite analysis and pyrite analysis. Also included are reports on spatiotemporal geochemical hydrocarbon interpretation, chromite petrology and pyrite characterisation.

<div><strong>Output Type:</strong> Exploring for the Future Extended Abstract</div><div><br></div><div><strong>Short Abstract: </strong>An advanced understanding of regional-scale metallogenic characteristics and ore-formation controls is fundamental for mineral discovery, particularly in underexplored covered terranes, such as the Delamerian Orogen of southeastern Australia. The Delamerian Orogen is defined as the spatial extent of rocks first deformed by the Delamerian Orogeny, though the Orogen was also affected by younger geodynamic events. Petrology of the mineralised host rocks from over 20 mineral prospects and deposits has led to the recognition of four types of mineral systems related to the geodynamic history of the Delamerian Orogen on mainland Australia, including (1) porphyry-epithermal; (2) volcanic-hosted massive sulphide (VHMS); (3) orogenic gold; and (4) mafic-ultramafic magmatic Cu-Ni-PGE systems. Several other prospects are yet to be classified due to insufficient data, although there is strong evidence to suggest that these are magmatic-hydrothermal in origin. Direct dating of hydrothermal alteration and mineralisation at key mineral deposits and prospects (using U-Pb in titanite and apatite, and Sm-Nd in fluorite) identified four major metallogenic events in the Delamerian Orogen margin. The middle to late Cambrian (505–494 Ma) mineral systems, throughout the eastern margin of the Delamerian Orogen, are potentially the most significant. However, our new dating indicates other metallogenic events at 590–580 Ma, 480–460 Ma, and 412–399 Ma. Analysis of data related to mineral systems fertility reveals crustal controls on the location and type of mineralisation in the Delamerian Orogen. Integration of Hf and O isotopes in zircon, and S isotopes in sulphide minerals indicates that the geology of the Orogen may host multiple opportunities for mineral system development. An indicative map of ca.600–400 Ma mineral system potential was developed by integrating this new data, together with other geological, geochemical and geophysical datasets within the geodynamic context of the Delamerian Orogen. Importantly, this study demonstrates the metallogenic characteristics of multiple types and episodes of mineral system development, and the geological processes that have controlled their formation to aid exploration.</div><div><br></div><div><strong>Citation: </strong>Cheng, Y., Gilmore, P., Lewis, C., Roach, I., Clark, A., Mole, D., Pitt, L., Doublier, M., Sanchez, G., Schofield, A., O'Rourke, A., Budd, A., Huston, D., Czarnota, K., Meffre, S., Feig, S., Maas, R., Gilbert, S., Cairns, C., Cayley, R., Wise, T., Wade, C., Werner, M., Folkes, C. &amp; Hughes, K., 2024. Mineral systems and metallogeny of the Delamerian Orogen margin. In: Czarnota, K. (ed.) Exploring for the Future: Extended Abstracts. Geoscience Australia, Canberra. https://doi.org/10.26186/149657</div><div><br></div>