June 2004

• AusGeo News out now
• Index of Airborne Geophysical Surveys
• Gawler Craton exploration seminar

AusGeo News 74 cover
© Geoscience Australia

The June issue of AusGeo News is now available. It focuses on Geoscience Australia's efforts to help exploration companies locate new mineral deposits beneath the continent's thick cover.

In South Australia's Gawler Craton, geophysical anomalies are being mapped to help determine possible locations of potential new copper-gold deposits like Olympic Dam. Some interesting results from seismic work alter notions about the southern McArthur Basin in the Northern Territory. As well, there is a wrap-up of two years' work in the Arunta-Tanami region of central Australia and discussion of further studies into Tanami gold.

A couple of small articles let you know that the Mt Stromlo satellite laser ranging station destroyed by bushfires is up and running, and that GPS sites in Australia's south-west seismic zone have been 'reoccupied' to measure crustal stress.

Various other articles outline Geoscience Australia's work, ranging from the mineral potential of Queensland granites, calibrating airline compasses to cyclone risk assessments and geochemical studies into lode-gold associations.

Download a pdf copy of AusGeo News Issue 74 or subscribe to this free publication.

Index of Airborne Geophysical Surveys

Index of Airborne
Geophysical Surveys
8th Edition
© Geoscience Australia

The Eighth Edition of the Index of Australian Government Airborne Geophysical Surveys is now available in both hardcopy and digital formats. This edition contains a more comprehensive coverage of surveys than the previous edition released in May 2003. Information on surveys prior to 2003 has been updated and additional surveys have been included from various State and Federal exploration initiatives and the ongoing airborne survey work of Government bodies. Specifications of several open file surveys are also included in this release.

The Index contains a summary of the major specifications of over 900 airborne surveys.

An updated interactive database of metadata for Australian airborne geophysical surveys has also been released, along with updated colour index maps which show the coverage over Australia of Geoscience Australia and State Government airborne magnetic, radiometric and gravity surveys.

Geoscience Australia is custodian of the most comprehensive publicly available Australian airborne magnetic, gamma-ray, elevation model and electromagnetic databases and gravity database. The airborne geophysics database contains more than 18.1 million line kilometres of mainly total magnetic intensity and gamma-ray spectrometric data.

• Digital versions of the Index Record, Index Maps and data files can be downloaded free. Visit the Geophysical Data Releases web page for news about this and other recent data releases.

Image of Gawler Craton
from PIRSA website

One of Australia's premier minerals provinces, the Gawler Craton, will be the focus of a three-day conference in Adelaide from 4-6 August. Hosted by Geoscience Australia and Primary Industries and Resources SA (PIRSA), Gawler Craton: State of Play 2004, will have speakers from industry, government, and academia presenting the results of recent work done in the Gawler Craton.

Geoscience Australia and PIRSA have been involved in a multidisciplinary, geoscientific project in the Gawler Craton since July 2000, producing pre-competitive geological, geophysical, geochemical and metallogenic datasets for use by the mineral exploration industry to locate deposits of gold, copper, probable nickel, diamonds and minerals sands.

The seminar will wrap up on 6 August with a Seismic Workshop and release of data from the Gawler Seismic Survey: 250 line-kilometres of deep seismic reflection data from the Olympic Dam region of the eastern Gawler Craton.