New Economy Minerals Initiative

URL: https://geoscience.data.qld.gov.au/dataset/ds000077

The New Economy Minerals Initiative (NEMI) was announced November 2019. The Initiative totals $23 million, and is implemented over an area across northern Queensland, including the North West Minerals Province in the west and extending to the coast between Townsville and Cooktown in the east. The goal of the initiative is to develop and support the growth of the critical minerals component of the resources sector in Queensland, from assessing regional prospectivity and facilitating exploration to investigating opportunities for processing and re-purposing of old mine sites and tailings facilities.

Geophysics

• Kamilaroi Airborne Magnetic and Radiometric Survey - A 61,368 line km geophysical survey covering over 5,000 sq km north of Mount Isa flown at 100m at line interval.

• Mount Isa Region Airborne Data Merge 2022 - A regional geophysical merge product created by merging recent high-resolution regional GSQ airborne magnetic and radiometric surveys and open-file exploration surveys in the North West Minerals Province, cell size of 10 metres covering 44,000 square kilometres.

• Canobie Airborne Gravity Gradiometry Survey - A 4,712 line km regional airborne gravity gradiometry survey flown at 1000m line interval north of Cloncurry

• Carpentaria Conductivity Anomaly Magnetotelluric Survey - Regional broadband Magnetotelluric (MT) focused to the south of Cloncurry was designed to link existing regional magnetotelluric lines, allowing integration with the 94 MTI seismic line and the Camooweal seismic survey.

• CF2/3 Magnetotelluric Survey - Two traverses of Magnetotelluric data along the 2014 CF2 and CF3 seismic lines consisting of 100 broadband MT stations from Winton to Boulia and to Birdsville spaced ~10km along line.

• Cloncurry Magnetotelluric Inversion Report - Report and model package for the 3D inversion of the Cloncurry and Cloncurry Extension MT surveys to the north of Cloncurry.

• East Isa AEM inversion work - Inversion of 2016 East Isa VTEM data conducted by Aarhus Geophysics

Regional Geoscience Programs

• Peralkaline Magmatic Systems - An investigation of peralkaline and near peralkaline igneous rock suites throughout eastern Queensland to assess potential for hosting critical metal enrichment;

  • Inventory of (near-) peralkaline rocks in eastern QLD for critical metal potenital.
  • Geochemistry of rocks and soils associated with the Cooby trachyte member in the Crows Nest region, Southeast Queensland.
  • Cenozoic volcanics of the Nebo area, central Queensland.

• Ore Potential – Central Queensland Volcanic Systems - A detailed study of the geology, geochemistry and petrogenesis of the Peak Range Volcanics in Central Queensland, known to be locally enriched in rare earth elements (University of Adelaide).

• Regional Prospectivity - A series of collaborative project between the GSQ, CSIRO and industry partners to generate new regional datasets in North-west Queensland. Focusing on improving understanding of the cover thickness, geology and geochemistry of the basement rocks of the Mount Isa Province.

• Seismic Interpretation of Northern Queensland - A collaborative project between the GSQ and UQ aimed at improving big picture understanding of the geology and evolution of northern Queensland and implications for mineral resources. The project integrates geology, geophysics and isotopic analysis to generate a new understanding of the structure and evolution of northern Queensland.

Mineral system and deposit studies

• Characterisation of Queensland mineral deposits – An integrated work program aiming to build up an extensive reference collection of representative drill hole and surface samples and associated geoscience data, to comprehensively characterise geochemical, mineralogical and petrophysical signatures of mineralisation, alteration and distal footprints of key deposits of different deposit types including the north east and north west mineral provinces;

  • GSQ Reference Collection Projects

• New Economy Minerals Compilation - A series of reports conducted by the Sustainable Minerals Institute (SMI) compiling geoscientific information and interpretations as an aid to exploration targeting for New Economy Minerals including;

  • Cobalt
  • Rare Earth Elements
  • Tin - Tunsgten
  • Scandium
  • Molybdenum - Rhenium
  • Silica
  • Indium - Gallium - Germanium
  • An online prospectivity tool was also created which allows users to query and modify the components of the prospectivity analysis for various deposit models.

• North East Queensland Deposit Atlas - Atlas of major deposits across north east Queensland including 3D Models and pdf report for each deposit.

• Critical metals in the Proterozoic Cu-Au-U systems of the eastern Mount Isa Inlier Report - Report by ANU on critical mineral variability across Cu-Au systems within the Mount Isa Eastern succession

• Potential for indium mineralisation in the Herberton Mineral Field, NE Qld - PhD project with James Cook University to understand the mineralogy, paragenesis, geochemistry and distribution of indium at the Baal Gammon and similar deposits, to develop a mineralisation model that links the occurrence of indium with the host tin-tungsten and polymetallic mineralisation

  • PhD Thesis

• Mineralisation potential for Ni, Sc, Cr and Co of ultramafic complexes in NE Qld - PhD project with James Cook University to understand the formation, petrogenesis and new economy mineral potential of ultramafic rocks in northeast Queensland, including mineralogical deportment of new economy metals and potential geochemical, textural and mineralogical vectors to ore that could be used during exploration

  • PhD Thesis

• Mt Garnet project - Fingerprinting mineralising fluids with hydrothermal minerals -A UQ-GSQ collaboration project examined key hydrothermal minerals (calcite, fluorite, etc.) in the Mt. Garnet skarn deposit, NE Queensland. Samples were analysed using advanced techniques including TIMA Automated Mineralogy, EPMA, LA-ICP-MS, and optical petrography.

• Sphalerite Report - This study analysed sphalerite from multiple Queensland deposits. Samples were provided by the Geological Survey of Queensland and analysed at the Australian National University. Element concentrations were determined using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Laser Ablation – Inductively Coupled Plasma – Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS).

• Signatures of Key Mineral Systems in the Eastern Mount Isa Province, Queensland: New Perspectives from Data Analytics - A collaborative project between the GSQ and CSIRO, leveraging a multi-property database generated through the earlier Cloncurry Uncover and METAL to discriminate signatures of mineral systems in the Eastern Mount Isa Province. The dataset consists of a range of petrophysical, geochemical, mineralogical and spectral properties for over two thousand samples collected from twenty-eight deposits across the region. The consistency, range of features, and diversity of samples within the reference database provides a solid foundation for analytics and investigation of data-driven models for mineral system signatures.

• Cu Isotopes in Groundwater; an exploration tool undercover - A collaborative project between GSQ, James Cook University and Juniata College in the US, to determine whether the Cu isotope composition of groundwater could be used as a vectoring tool for copper mineralisation under cover.

Secondary Prospectivity

• Queensland's Secondary Prospectivity - Collaborative project with the Sustainable Minerals Institute at the University of Queensland (UQ-SMI) assessing the potential for secondary prospectivity through the examination of previously unconsidered mining opportunities at existing mines. Project is in progress, some recent publications:

  • Review on advances in mineral processing technologies suitable for critical metal recovery from mining and processing wastes
  • Review on metal extraction technologies suitable for critical metal recovery from mining and processing wastes

• Assessing Recommercialisation Potential at the Mary Kathleen mine, Queensland - This project focuses on characterisation of mine tailings at the Mary Kathleen mine, to address existing knowledge gaps, evaluate the properties of drill core and interpret new datasets

• Prospectivity of Rare Earth Elements in Phosphorites - This project aims to geochemically characterise phosphorite occurrences across the Georgina Basin

  • REE enrichment of phosphorites: An example of the Cambrian Georgina Basin of Australia

• Extracting Queensland’s Rare Earth Elements Sustainably - This project aims to provide prospective explorers with a clearer understanding of possible approaches for economic extraction of REE from mineralisation associated with their exploration projects.