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Major Initiatives

4D lithospheric evolution and controls on mineral systems in Neoarchean to Paleoproterozoic terranes

West Africa

This project is studying a fundamental transition period in planet Earth 2.7-1.8 billion years ago (Ga), that is also remarkably endowed in metal deposits.

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ARC Industrial Transformation Training Centre for Data Analytics for Resources and Environments (DARE)

Australia

The ARC Industrial Transformation Training Centre for Data Analytics for Resources and Environments (DARE) will develop and deliver the data science skills and tools for Australia’s natural resource industries and managers; to be expert users of data and models; to quantify, explain and understand uncertainty; and to make the best possible evidence-based decisions in exploiting and stewarding the nations’ natural resources and environment. The DARE Centre is a collaborative research centre led by the University of Sydney in partnership with the University of New South Wales and the University of Western Australia and funded under a five-year grant from the Australian Research Council in partnership with industry and government. Our Partner Organisations represent some of Australia’s leading organisations directly involved in natural resource use and management.

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Australia Awards - Africa - Mineral and Energy Economics

South Africa

The Centre for Exploration Targeting (CET) in partnership with the University of Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, have successfully tendered for the “Australia Awards – Africa Short Courses in Mineral and Energy Economics” for the period 2018 -2022

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Automated 3D Modelling

Perth, Western Australia

MinEx CRC Project 6 aims to develop an automated workflow, including algorithms and software, for the integration and first-pass interpretation of geologically characterised drill hole data and other data routinely used to build 3D geological models. The resulting workflow will facilitate rapid 3D model building processes that draw upon multiple geological datasets, are reproducible, provide uncertainty estimates, offer various geological hypotheses, and allow timely model updating. These models will enable uncertainty analysis and multiple geological scenarios to be developed as inputs to support resource estimation and data acquisition strategies. This project will work closely with the international Loop consortium (http://loop3d.org) that has a long-term goal of building a generalised Open Source platform for 3D geological modelling, and all codes developed by Loop will be available for use by this project, providing significant leverage for MinEx CRC funds.

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Giant Gold Systems of the Birimian (Obuasi, Siguiri)

Ghana/Guinea, West Africa

This project is building 4-D geological models to aid exploration targeting at both mine and regional scales in the Paleoproterozoic terranes of the Leo-Mann shield in West Africa.

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WAXI - West African eXploration Initiative - stage 3

West Africa

The West African eXploration Initiative (WAXI) is an ambitious research and training program led by eight partner institutions, focused on the mineral potential of the West African Craton. This Initiative, which commenced in November 2006, is principally funded by the international Mining Industry and the Australian Government (AusAID & ARC), via an AMIRA International consortium. AMIRA International is an industry association dedicated to supporting collaborative minerals industry research. The overall aim of West Africa Exploration Initiative is to enhance the exploration potential of the West African Craton through an integrated program of research and data gathering into its “anatomy’, and to augment the capacity of local institutions to undertake this form of work. The capacity building activities for Stage 2 were completely underwritten by AusAID (the Australian Agency for International Development). The initiative covers the whole of the Leo-Man Shield and its immediate surrounds, and includes the following countries: Burkina Faso, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Ghana, The Gambia, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Niger, Sierra Leone and Togo.

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Yilgarn 2020

Yilgarn Craton, Western Australia

Yilgarn 2020 is a new 3-year research program that aims at enhancing our ability to predict the distribution of mineralised camps. Tectonic systems, and associated mineralising systems, involve a number of interlinked physical and chemical processes that occur across all levels of the crust and upper mantle. At the regional scale, the poorly constrained deep crust and lithospheric mantle provide strong rheological and chemical contrasts that control the dynamics of evolving tectonic events, and are source regions for potentially mineralised melts and metamorphic fluids. The deep crust and lithospheric mantle are occasionally exposed in orogens, but in cratons they are unexposed. Therefore, our understanding must be gained through proxy datasets, including geochemical, isotopic and geophysical data.

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Research Projects

Automated Televiewer Image Analysis

Western Australia

Televiewer datasets, acoustic and optical, provide ‘pictures’ of the wall of a drillhole.

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Controls on epithermal and orogenic gold mineralisation in Argentina

Argentina

This two year research project was funded by Troy Resources in order to generate a series of GIS-based prospectivity maps and to delineate targets for different gold systems and various styles of gold mineralization in Argentina, from country-scale to district-scale analyses, with a focus on the Casposo low sulfidation epithermal gold system in the Frontal Cordillera, San Juan province in Argentina.

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District-scale geology and controls on mineralization, Pataz gold field

Pataz gold field, Pataz

This 12 month post-doctoral research programme was funded by Poderosa to map the geology (at 1:25 000) of the Pataz district, where the company operates several undergorund gold deposits (<4 Mill oz Au) hosted by the Pataz batholith in the underexplored Eastern Andean Cordillera of Peru. The goal of this applied research was to determine the controls on mineralisation and propose exploration targets based on the results of this investigation.

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