Print version
A sustainable Australian resources sector needs an equally healthy exploration industry as exploration underpins future mining and minerals processing activity. Cost-effective exploration requires refinement of exploration models and the targeting process. Despite Australian mineral exploration expenditure currently acheiving record levels, the industry is facing several critical issues such as reduced levels of metals production that are the result of the run down of existing reserves, closure of some mining operations, and the absence of any major new operations for over a decade. In addition, there has been an increasing focus over the last ten years to brownfields exploration in Australia (and globally).
As a consequence, Australia’s ‘resources boom’ has been occurring at a time of historically low levels of exploration and mineral resource discovery. New resources are required to replace those we have already mined and predicted to be exhausted within the next decade. The challenge then is finding new mineral ore deposits that are likely to be buried beneath surface cover and more difficult to locate since most economic deposits close to the surface have already been discovered. New ways to find new ore bodies are therefore required. New exploration concepts and advancing the geological knowledge base are important elements to assist minerals exploration. We are developing new concepts that will advance our understanding of why and when precious and base metal ore deposits are formed, and new tools to assist the exploration targeting process in understanding where ore deposits are likely to have formed. Through its projects the BRC is taking a "bottom-up" approach in its research programs by better understanding the lifespan, conditions and processes of magmatic systems that lead to the generation of ore deposits.
The BRC is establishing a research footprint in the following areas:
As a consequence, Australia’s ‘resources boom’ has been occurring at a time of historically low levels of exploration and mineral resource discovery. New resources are required to replace those we have already mined and predicted to be exhausted within the next decade. The challenge then is finding new mineral ore deposits that are likely to be buried beneath surface cover and more difficult to locate since most economic deposits close to the surface have already been discovered. New ways to find new ore bodies are therefore required. New exploration concepts and advancing the geological knowledge base are important elements to assist minerals exploration. We are developing new concepts that will advance our understanding of why and when precious and base metal ore deposits are formed, and new tools to assist the exploration targeting process in understanding where ore deposits are likely to have formed. Through its projects the BRC is taking a "bottom-up" approach in its research programs by better understanding the lifespan, conditions and processes of magmatic systems that lead to the generation of ore deposits.
The BRC is establishing a research footprint in the following areas:
· Volcanology & Igneous Geology
· Exploration Geology / Predictive Targeting of Ore Bodies
· Magmatic and fluid processes responsible for the localisation and development of epithermal and porphyry ore mineralization
· Epithermal Au-Ag & porphyry Cu mineralisation
· Geochemical and geochronological characterisation of heat-producing granitic rocks for geothermal power.
