Regional architecture of the southern McArthur Basin, Northern Territory
Exploration for Zinc-Lead-Silver mineral deposits in northern Australia is hindered by cover, remoteness and complex geology. Integration of different geoscientific data is providing new information on factors and processes controlling where and how these mineral deposits form, paving the way for future discoveries.
A three-year collaboration between CSIRO and the Northern Territory Geological Survey has seen a diverse team of researchers integrate different geoscience fields such as sedimentology, structural geology, geochemistry, geophysics, and numerical modelling to solve some of the big questions on how and where large Zinc-Lead-Silver deposits form.
Integrated geophysical and geological analysis is providing new constraints on the fault architecture and depositional environments of 1.6 billion year old sedimentary rocks, which control how metal-rich fluids move through and become trapped in rocks to form deposits.
Project Outputs can be found HERE and HERE
Publications
An example of Joint Potential Field Modelling from the project, showing a) Geological interpretation along modelled profile. Red line corresponds to the cross-section. b) Observed and calculated magnetic data, c)Observed and calculated gravity data, d) modelled geological cross-section with density (g cm−3) and magnetic susceptibility (SI) parameters labelled.