In the coming months North West Queensland and the Barkly Tableland will have some of the best mapped geological terrain in the world, a meeting heard last week.
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Geosciences Australia’s Richard Blewett presented to the Mount Isa Tennant Cross Border Commission meeting of Mount Isa and Barkly region mayors and he said the geology does not change at the border.
Mr Blewett spoke about the Geosciences Australia $100m program “Exploring for the Future” which looks at the potential for investment in minerals, energy and groundwater
“”Exploring for the Future’ a new initiative from the government to develop Northern Australia,” Mr Blewett said.
“We have a particular emphasis on this region between Mount Isa and Tennant Creek and we want to improve the opportunities for discoveries in this part of the world”.
We have a particular emphasis on this region between Mount Isa and Tennant Creek and we want to improve the opportunities for discoveries in this part of the world
- Richard Blewett
Mr Blewett said Mount Isa was known as a world class minerals district with decades of mineral development here.
“Similarly in Tennant Creek mineral deposits go back many decades,” he said.
“But between those two regions is the great unknown but there is no reason that region can’t host similar high quality deposits so what we are doing is to try and collect new geological information for that area.”
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Mr Blewett said that was being achieved with a lot of geophysical, geochemical and geological mapping.
“Much of our $100m project is focussed on this region,” he said.
“We’ve got aircrafts in the air imaging the earth, we’ve also got people on the ground collecting samples and we’ve got big trucks collecting deep seismic data – so a whole lot of surveys imaging the earth beneath our feet at a level in scope and scale never done before.”
Results of the mapping of the South Nicholson seismic data and South Nicholson gravity data are already on the Geosciences Australia website with more mapping results to come.