Geoscience Society June Newsletter

30 Jun 2022 · 1400 words, 6 min read

Welcome

I would like to welcome you to the June edition of the AusIMM Geoscience Society newsletter. Your Society is continuing to support and develop an active program of webinars, educational opportunities for ongoing professional development and a number of engagement initiatives targeting the broader community. You may be aware that AusIMM has moved to build up its membership support and advocacy capabilities and we are keen to capitalise on this opportunity. We are seeking to issue a newsletter every second month.

Again, I would like to thank the hard-working Geoscience Committee members, many juggling busy work commitments between meetings and events. Please reach out if you would like to contribute to the Society or explore opportunities for assistance in local or Branch events. Email us here: geoscience@ausimm.com.au

Best Regards
Tony Wiggins, Chairperson AusIMM Geoscience Society

Webinar program recap

Your Society hosted the following two webinars since the last edition of the newsletter. We thank both Alan Collins and Brenton Crawford for sharing their insights and knowledge.

New Exploration Scale Techniques to Date Proterozoic Sediments and Understand and Date Hydrothermal Events

On 27 April, Professor Alan Collins presented a fascinating talk focused on recent developments concerning the recognition of alteration events in ancient rocks. These developments have clear and exciting applications for exploration programs focused on ancient rocks or broader evaluations where older sequences represent a significant proportion of a geological domain. The presentation is available on the AusIMM digital library.

Specifically, results of laser Rb-Sr analyses were presented, and it was explained how they were used to date altered mafic volcanic rocks in core from the Stuart Shelf (SA) and the McArthur Basin (NT), where alteration is syn-emplacement. The talk touched on evidence of subtle hydrothermal alteration and identified when it involved the ingress of external fluids or simply the heating of formation waters. Professor Collins also presented the results of Sam Rasch’s University of Adelaide Honours thesis from 2021, where these techniques were used to date an unknown Proterozoic sedimentary sequence encountered in the MinEx CRC’s National Drilling initiative core NDIBK10 in the East Tennant Region (Brunette Downs Rift Corridor - NT).

Extracting Geotechnical Data from Core Imagery using Machine Learning

On 2 June Brenton Crawford, Chief Operating Officer at Datarock presented a webinar on new applications of machine learning in the area of geotechnical logging of cores.

Extracting geotechnical data from imagery offers some significant improvements in observation consistency as well as unlocking new types of geotechnical data not able to be efficiently collected manually. Leveraging imagery as a basis for logging allows for geotechnical observations to be visually recorded, improving the chain of custody for these high value datasets. Advances in computer vision techniques have created an opportunity to improve the way we extract some types of geotechnical data from drill core.

Advocacy

Your Society welcomes the appointment of Simon Jemison as Head of Advocacy and Government Relations. A qualified geoscientist, Simon presented some insights to the Committee at the May meeting, touching on the work ahead including issues relating to the “Future of the workforce” (touched on in the last newsletter, and following the theme of school engagement initiatives) and the challenges arising from forecast demand of “critical minerals” (though recognising that steelmaking minerals and coal have a far more significant contribution to national exports than other metals in 2022).

We have asked Simon to be a regular participant at future meetings of the Society in recognition of the central importance of advocacy and engagement.

The last newsletter featured recent developments at the proposed National Rock Garden to be located at Black Mountain in Canberra. The Committee is supportive of this initiative as an opportunity to connect school students, their parents and teachers to the diversity and importance of the national geological heritage.

AusIMM Courses

The Society welcomed Gillian McEwen, AusIMM's Senior Advisor, Education, to the April meeting to outline the opportunities to develop a broader program of geoscience specific training opportunities to advance professional development and build core capabilities. Members will be familiar with the highly successful JORC online courses and the ESG & Social Responsibility programs. Links to these and other programs can be found here:

• The AusIMM website for short courses
• AusIMM website for on demand courses

Look out for new geoscience programs in future months.

Core Logging returns for 2022

In conjunction with the Australian Institute of Geoscientists, your Society is facilitating the 2022 instalment of Dale Sim’s popular Core Skills for Geoscientists, an introductory program designed to develop data collection, sampling, assay QAQC, data validation and interpretation processes through a practical core logging exercise.

The program will be run at the GSQ Exploration Data Centre, 68 Pineapple Street, Zillmere, QLD from 18 -22 July. Further details can be found here

Your Society is working to accredit and expand this program nationally, with additional modules expanding from the introductory platform.

We are moving to publish this newsletter every second month. Noting that it is circulated to over 3,000 members, we are considering advertising opportunities. Please reach out to Ian Wollff at the Geoscience Society Committee for more detail via geoscience@ausimm.com.au

Open Programs

Both NExUS and CODES are seeking students.

NExUS is a prestigious summer school for the next generation of Australian exploration geoscientists. National Exploration Undercover School (NExUS) is funded by the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) Minerals Tertiary Education Council (MTEC) and OZ Minerals. The program is administered through the University of Adelaide. Provisional dates for the 2022 South Australian field course are 27th November to 11th December, and applications are open between May and July.

Eligibility

There are places for up to 30 participants from anywhere in Australia.
To be eligible, you must be enrolled at an Australian University.
Applications from early career professionals in industry (typically less than two years), or with government geological surveys and organisations are also welcome.
International students enrolled at Australian Universities are eligible to apply.

CODES - Centre for Ore Deposit and Earth Sciences is seeking several PhD candidates to investigate "Environmentally sustainable production of critical metals", on new three year research projects.

PhD scholarships are currently available for domestic and international students to research "Pathways to production for critical metals – extraction as by-products from operating base metal mines and from mine waste materials". The candidates will be based at University of Tasmania Hobart campus, and will spend significant time working at western Tasmanian mine sites with our industry partners. Details of the pathways to production PhD projects and information on how to apply can be found here. Please email CODES.Info@utas.edu.au for more details. Closing date for applications is 18th July, with projects available to commence in the second half of 2022.

What’s going on with critical minerals

A critical mineral is a metallic or non-metallic element that has two characteristics: 1) It is essential for the functioning of our modern technologies, economies or national security and 2) There is a risk that its supply chains could be disrupted.

Risks to critical mineral supply chains can come about when mineral production or processing is dominated by individual countries or companies that could limit availability. Other risks include market immaturity, political decisions, social unrest, natural disasters, mine accidents, geological scarcity, pandemics, and war. The Australian Government considers 26 resource commodities to be critical minerals.

Three out of eight of the Australian Government’s $225 million Exploring for the Future programs, led by Geoscience Australia (GA), have an application to critical minerals. Critical mineral studies by GA include; a review of mineral occurrences, national mine waste assessment, economic fairways mapper, heavy mineral map of Australia, the geochemistry for basin prospectivity. See; Critical Minerals at Geoscience Australia | Geoscience Australia (ga.gov.au)

The 31st May Australia Indonesia Business Council with ambassador HE Dr Siswo Pramono, re-emphasized the ongoing business cooperation, including Australian miners undertaking REE and other processing in Indonesia, and that Australian lithium, cobalt and manganese could be supplied into the Indonesian Li-Ni battery manufacturing industry.

The 26th May GSQ UQ international geoscience webinar included a presentation by Garth Graham to introduced the joint Canada, Australia, USA national collaboration program to synchronize their critical mineral data and future work programs. This work included synchronizing deposit types, geochemical data base, geological nomenclature, and develop modelling teams. Some public data bases have little company data. A knowledge driven approach is undertaken to drive the ultimate goal of determining in ground resources for present, and what may be expected in the medium / long term.