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Delivering solutions through collaboration
Unlocking
Australia’s hidden
mineral potential
An Industry
Roadmap—
STAGE 1
VISION: Delivering Australia’s major new
mines by locating and unlocking future
mineral wealth, and positioning Australia
as the global leader in exploration beneath
post‑mineral cover rocks.
The AMIRA Roadmap for Exploration Under Cover is the key output from
facilitated workshops that identified and prioritised the Australian minerals
exploration industry’s long-term R&D needs. The context for the Roadmap
is improving exploration and discovery performance in areas of post-mineral
cover which dominate much of the Australian continent. The time horizon for
the Roadmap is 10–20 years.
The Roadmap process was undertaken by AMIRA International Limited, on behalf
of its members and the broader minerals exploration community.
Themes
The complex challenges identified
by the AMIRA Roadmap for
Exploration Under Cover can be
best understood in the context of
the themes identified through the
Academy of Science UNCOVER
initiative, plus two additional key
themes (5 and 6), identified by
the Roadmap participants.
1 Characterising the Cover—lifting
the veil on mineral deposits
2 Whole Lithospheric Architecture—
understanding the multi‑scale
architecture of mineral systems
The Roadmap builds on work completed by the UNCOVER Implementation
Committee which was convened after the Australian Academy of Science’s 2010
Theo Murphy High Flyers Think Tank.
3 4D Geodynamic Evolution and
Metallogenesis—understanding
the processes that control mineral
deposit formation
It is recognised that Australia’s easily-found, economically viable, non-ferrous
mineral deposits have already been discovered and, to a large extent, exploited.
Future non‑ferrous mineral discoveries will occur in the large portion of Australia
that is under post-mineral cover. This presents a new set of difficult challenges.
4 Distal Mineral Footprints—
improving our ability to detect
the presence of mineral deposits
across a range of scales
If we are to dramatically reduce the high cost and even higher risk of exploring
in these covered areas and improve the discovery rate, we must address the data,
knowledge and technology capability needs identified by the Roadmap.
5 Risk/Reward for Covered
Economic Resources
The AMIRA Roadmap for Exploration Under Cover provides a blueprint for
addressing these challenges and will require the collective action of industry,
academia and government to ensure that the vision of the Roadmap is realised.
6 Research, Education and
Training—enabling tomorrow’s
mineral explorationists for success.
Image: Phillip Capper, Wikimedia Commons
The seeds for success
The seeds of future success lie in addressing the 45 focus areas identified by the Roadmap. However, these need
to be addressed in an integrated and systematic way. Sixteen priority research and technology activities together with
complementary data compilation and acquisition programmes were identified by the Roadmap sponsors.
Table 1: Roadmap Stage 1 prioritisation results. Highest and high priority focus area themes.
Focus Area
Priority
Understand type, age, depth of cover. Compile and produce 3D
Geological and Paleosurface maps and layers
Highest Priority
Depth-to-basement and cover-characteristics, imaging from new
targeted airborne National (20km) EM surveys
Highest Priority
Compile and integrate models and data to build 3D architecture and
composition of Australian whole lithosphere
Highest Priority
Acceleration and completion of national AusLamp long period MT
(55km spacing) program
Highest Priority
Improve understanding and develop definitions of mineral systems
across scales for different model/deposit types and commodities
Highest Priority
Characterise and mapping whole mineral system footprint signatures
(proximal to distal)
Highest Priority
Targeted and prioritised cover/paleosurface horizons and basement resampling and new sampling via Onshore Stratigraphic drilling initiative
High priority
Improve and refine understanding of geochemical dispersion in post
mineralisation cover sequences
High priority
Map metal fertility of lithosphere (current state) structures, domains
and basins
High Priority
Data acquisition - Australian Seismic Array ASA
High Priority
Acquire ~4km grid of gravity over continent
High Priority
Create and update a fully 3D current architectural interpretation
of Australian lithosphere
High Priority
Targeted geochron data acquisition of mineral occurrences and priority
basins and concealed basment via Strat drill program
High Priority
Increased understanding of genesis and development of major
trans‑lithospheric geodynamic faults/lineaments through time
High Priority
Create new fertility tools to understand and map metal fertilities for
specific geological, tectonic and metallogenic events over time
High Priority
Maximise size of detectable signature and understand detection levels
and capabilities
High Priority
Data
compilation
Data
acquisition
Research
Technology
development
Scale Reduction Goals
Theme
Terrane to
Regional
Regional to
Camp
Camp to
Deposit
Characterising the cover
Lithospheric architecture
4D Geodymamic evolution
and metallogenesis
Distal mineral footprints
Risk/reward for covered
economic resources
Research, education and
training
Research, education and training is an underpinning and
high priority focus area. As it maps across all scales it was
not mapped in the Scale Dependency Matrix.
Summary dependency matrix—Impact to scale-dependent goals
of focus area themes.
Image: Geological Survey of Western Australia
A bold and collaborative initiative
The AMIRA Roadmap for Exploration Under Cover is a call
to arms to industry, government and research institutions to
address the challenges associated with exploration in the
covered areas of Australia, with an aim to improve exploration
performance and discovery. This will open up huge tracks of
land that has been too difficult to explore.
Government impact: If we do not arrest the decline
in discovery rates, there will be far reaching repercussions
for Australia’s ability to attract exploration investment, for its
role as a major exporter of minerals, and revenues to state
and federal treasuries. This may not be immediately evident
but eventually it will have negative flow on effects to the
mineral equipment, technologies and services (METS) sector;
to the ability to maintain a world leading research capability
that supports the industry, and to the local communities that
rely on mining to provide jobs and services.
Australia must attract and encourage investment
in greenfield exploration, which is necessary to make
the discoveries that will provide a pipeline of new mines,
maintain future minerals based export revenue, and
fuel further infrastructure development in regional areas
including in northern Australia. The Commonwealth
Government’s Exploration Development Incentive along with
the various State and Territories exploration initiatives are
important to encourage exploration but we must address
the challenges identified by the Roadmap if we are ultimately
to be successful.
Industry impact: To improve the discovery rate in areas of
cover we must decrease technical and financial risk. The only
way this can be achieved is through genuine cross-industry
collaboration and co-investment.
Collective action is required to ensure that the hard work
of addressing the challenges identified by the Roadmap can
begin. Truly integrated solutions that combine new research,
accelerated data compilation and acquisition, through an
unprecedented national scale collaborative effort, are the
keys to unlocking Australia’s hidden mineral potential.
To move forward, genuine
cross‑industry collaboration and
co‑investment is vital.
The collaborative effort in the form of a National Exploration
Research Programme can be realised through the creation
of a formal structure around which the necessary critical
mass of research expertise can be brought together under
an appropriate management structure.
Active participation of the METS sector will ensure a conduit
by which knowledge will be disseminated and technology
commercialised.
For this to be realised, all stakeholders must promote
the National Exploration Research Programme, and the
minerals industry should support the initiative in both cash
and in-kind. The return on investment through increased
discoveries, and flow on benefits is huge.
Research Organisations impact: Assembling Australia’s
brain trust around the National Exploration Research
Programme will be a key to success! This programme
will maximise Australia’s world-class mineral exploration
geoscience research expertise and technology development
capacity to drive the development of exploration tools that
will reduce technical and financial risk.
AMIRA International is grateful for the support and participation of the following organisations and individals:
Sponsors
Anglo American Exploration Australia Pty Ltd
AngloGold Ashanti Australia
Antofagasta Minerals Australia Pty Ltd
Aruma Resources Limited
Australian Institute of Geoscientists
Barrick Gold Corporation
BHP Billiton
CGG Aviation (Australia) Pty Ltd
Encounter Resources Limited
Evolution Mining
First Quantum Minerals Ltd
Geological Survey of NSW
Geological Survey of Queensland
Geological Survey of South Australia
Geological Survey of Victoria
Geological Survey of Western Australia
Geoscience Australia
Gold Road Resources Limited
Investigator Resources
Minerals Tertiary Education Council (MTEC)
Minotaur Exploration Ltd
Monax Mining Limited
Mount Isa Mines Ltd
Newcrest Mining Limited
Northern Territory Geological Survey
PGN Geoscience
Rio Tinto Exploration Pty Limited
Sandfire Resources NL
Silver City Minerals
Sipa Resources Limited
Southern Geoscience Consultants
Stavely Minerals
Teck Australia Pty Ltd
Western Areas Ltd
Subject Expert Contributors
Graham Begg
Michelle Carey
David Gray
Scott Halley
Dave Lawie
Cam McCuaig
Richard Schodde
Tom Whiting
Allan Trench
Bruce Gemmell, CODES
David Giles, DET CRC
Bill Griffin, Macquarie University
Graham Heinson, University of Adelaide
Richard Hillis, DET CEC
Rob Hough, CSIRO
Mark Jessell, CET UWA
Chris Kirkland, Curtin University
Tim Munday, CSIRO
Sue O’Reilly, Macquarie University
Tim Rawling, AuScope
Mark Woffenden, MRIWA
Coordination and management
Invited Researchers
Peter Betts & Andy Tomkins, Monash University
Zhaoshan Chang, James Cook University
Chris Clark, Curtin University
Alan Collins, University of Adelaide
Bill Collins, University of Newcastle
Mike Dentith, University of Western Australia
AMIRA International Ltd
AMIRA International is a global member‑based
organisation of minerals companies and
suppliers which develops, brokers and
facilitates collaborative research projects
and roadmaps.
This initiative was coordinated by
Robbie Rowe with the assistance
of Adele Seymon.
Sponsors
Further information and contact:
Adele Seymon
Program Director, Exploration to Mine & Sustainability
AMIRA International
Joe Cucuzza
Managing Director
AMIRA International
Phone: +61 3 8636 9978
| Email: [email protected]
Address: Level 2, 271 William Street, Melbourne VIC 3000
Web: www.amirainternational.com.au
GA 15-9066