The Heavy Mineral Map of Australia: Vision and Pilot Project

We describe a vision for a national-scale heavy mineral (HM) map generated through automated mineralogical identification and quantification of HMs contained in floodplain sediments from large catchments covering most of Australia. The composition of the sediments reflects the dominant rock types in each catchment, with the generally resistant HMs largely preserving the mineralogical fingerprint of their host protoliths through the weathering-transport-deposition cycle. Heavy mineral presence/absence, absolute and relative abundance, and co-occurrence are metrics useful to map, discover and interpret catchment lithotype(s), geodynamic setting, magmatism, metamorphic grade, alteration and/or mineralization. Underpinning this vision is a pilot project, focusing on a subset from the national sediment sample archive, which is used to demonstrate the feasibility of the larger, national-scale project. We preview a bespoke, cloud-based mineral network analysis (MNA) tool to visualize, explore and discover relationships between HMs as well as between them and geological settings or mineral deposits. We envisage that the Heavy Mineral Map of Australia and MNA tool will contribute significantly to mineral prospectivity analysis and modeling, particularly for technology critical elements and their host minerals, which are central to the global economy transitioning to a more sustainable, lower carbon energy model

The Heavy Mineral Map of Australia: Vision and Pilot Project

We describe a vision for a national-scale heavy mineral (HM) map generated through automated mineralogical identification and quantification of HMs contained in floodplain sediments from large catchments covering most of Australia. The composition of the sediments reflects the dominant rock types in each catchment, with the generally resistant HMs largely preserving the mineralogical fingerprint of their host protoliths through the weathering-transport-deposition cycle. Heavy mineral presence/absence, absolute and relative abundance, and co-occurrence are metrics useful to map, discover and interpret catchment lithotype(s), geodynamic setting, magmatism, metamorphic grade, alteration and/or mineralization. Underpinning this vision is a pilot project, focusing on a subset from the national sediment sample archive, which is used to demonstrate the feasibility of the larger, national-scale project. We preview a bespoke, cloud-based mineral network analysis (MNA) tool to visualize, explore and discover relationships between HMs as well as between them and geological settings or mineral deposits. We envisage that the Heavy Mineral Map of Australia and MNA tool will contribute significantly to mineral prospectivity analysis and modeling, particularly for technology critical elements and their host minerals, which are central to the global economy transitioning to a more sustainable, lower carbon energy model

Steered migration in hard rock environments

Hard rock seismic exploration normally has to deal with rather complex geological environments. These types of environments are usually characterized by a large number of local heterogeneity (e.g., faults, fracture zones, and steeply dipping interfaces). The seismic data from such environments often have a poor signal-to-noise ratio because of the complexity of hard rock geology. To be able to obtain reliable images of subsurface structures in such geological conditions, processing algorithms that are capable of handling seismic data with a low signal-to-noise ratio are required for a reflection seismic exploration. In this paper, we describe a modification of the 3D Kirchhoff post-stack migration algorithm that utilizes coherency attributes obtained by the diffraction imaging algorithm in 3D to steer the main Kirchhoff summation. The application to a 3D synthetic model shows the stability of the presented steered migration to the presence of high level of the random noise. A test on the 3D seismic volume, acquired on a mine site located in Western Australia, reveals the capability of the approach to image steep and sharp objects such as fracture and fault zones and lateral heterogeneity

Magmatic process recorded in plagioclase at the Baogutu reduced porphyry Cu deposit, western Junggar, NW-China

Despite the fact that porphyry Cu deposits contain large amounts of Cu in one or more small stocks, few studies have discussed evidence for significant magma recharge in porphyry Cu deposits. A systematic elemental and Sr isotopic study of plagioclase crystals from mineralized diorite and granodiorite porphyry constrains the processes of crystallization and magma recharge at the Baogutu reduced porphyry copper deposit, western Junggar, NW-China. Large compositional changes in An (12–24 mol%) are observed along with strong positive correlations between An and FeO. Significant resorption textures are also preserved in plagioclase crystals as well as repeated oscillatory zoning in An and FeO, and complex Sr isotope variations. Three types of crystals with different core-to-rim Sr isotope variations are recognized. Type I crystals have core-to-rim increases in (87Sr/86Sr)i that could be explained by diffusion. For example, Sr isotope variations recorded in BCK2-1-2 crystal could be generated by diffusion with simulated maximum crystal residence times of 100–500 years with the proximate value of 300 years. Type II crystals with different variation trends in (87Sr/86Sr)i on opposite sides of the core could be produced either by multi-stage crystallization or by analytical uncertainty. Whereas, type III crystals with complex core-to-rim variations in (87Sr/86Sr)i, may record repeated magma recharge events. All these results suggest repeated recharging of the magma chamber by hotter, more mafic and less radiogenic Sr isotope melts. Therefore, more mafic melt injection recorded in plagioclase profiles may provide significant metal contributions to the magma chamber, which ultimately results in Cu mineralization at the Baogutu reduced porphyry copper deposit