Mineral Systems Workshop Perth 2–3 July 2013 Declining (greenfields) exploration success Increasing costs Australia 80% cover – great opportunity Exploring under cover challenge Costs Know how and Technical risk How to meet these challenges?

Standing Council Energy & Resources (SCER) National Mineral Exploration Strategy (2012)

Three elements to National Mineral Exploration Strategy

UNCOVER: a meeting of minds A vision for exploration geoscience in Australla A collaborative network comprising: Industry Geological Surveys Academia Service providers 1.Characterising Australia’s cover 2.Investigating Australia’s lithospheric architecture 3.Resolving the 4D geodynamic and metallogenic evolution 4.Characterising and detecting the distal footprints of ore deposits

How to uncover Australia’s mineral resources? ©Getty images 1.New knowledge -> Mineral systems 2.Pre-competitive data 3.New technology 4.People networks Traditional ore deposit study scale Required mineral systems scale Australia’s Advantage

Mineral Systems Workshop: a meeting of minds Day and half workshop on mineral systems: Ideas seeded by short talks Tables for discussion; questions provided Rapporteurs to all Meeting structured where each ‘session’ builds to the next Group is large - Multiple working hypotheses, may have to take a path (for argument’s sake)

What are mineral systems? Towards a definition of a mineral system, its elements and its terminology  Mineral systems ‘history’  pmd*CRC 5 questions (5Qs)  WMS approach  GA  CET approach Subhash Jaireth John Walshe Jon Hronsky Dave Huston Alan Aitken

What are mineral systems: Discussion Break out discussions  Do these definitions miss anything?  What are common elements?  Strengths/weaknesses of each  Are there better alternatives?  Is a unified model achievable and/or desirable? All

How many mineral systems are there? A mineral systems ‘cladogram’  Making the problem more tractable  How many ‘families’ of mineral systems (as unifiers of countless mineral deposit ‘types’) are there? Dave Huston Break out discussions  Are there 9 ‘families’; maybe more or maybe less?  Is this framing useful in developing a coherent systems framework? All

Mineral systems: scale and fertility/criticality Mineral systems and scale  Ni mineral systems an example of a huge one  Placer’s 1000x1000 km; 50x50 km, 5x5 km; <1x1 km Jon Claoue-Long Greg Hall Mineral systems and fertility (or criticality): two examples Dave Huston (VHMS) Steve Barnes (Ni)

Scale and fertility/criticality: Discussion Each breakout table takes 1 ‘family’  At what scale do predictions and their attendant data ‘give way’ to detections and their attendant data?  What elements of the conceptual system can be ‘mapped’ at these different scales?  Can fertility (as outlined) be mapped?  What do you do if the fertility has a low rank – as a gov promoting your patch, as an explorer with low rank ground?  What element(s) are CRITICAL as opposed to desirable? All Rapporteurs

Mineral system applications: two case studies Applications of mineral systems for analysis of potential and prediction A case study from Africa and Australia Case studies for South Australia and uranium Janet Tunjic Martin Fairclough Reflections on the dayGraham Begg Dean Collett

Thank you Dr Richard Blewett Group Leader: Regional Geology & Mineral Systems Geoscience Australia