ARC Centre of Excellence for Core to Crust Fluid Systems. Water is essential for human existence, indeed for life's beginning. The circulation of water between the surface and the deep interior lubricates the internal dynamics that keep Earth geologically alive; it is crucial to most Earth systems, including the evolution of the hydrospher/atmosphere/biosphere, and the development of giant ore deposits. However, the origin, abundance, speciation and movements of fluids inside Earth are largely u ....ARC Centre of Excellence for Core to Crust Fluid Systems. Water is essential for human existence, indeed for life's beginning. The circulation of water between the surface and the deep interior lubricates the internal dynamics that keep Earth geologically alive; it is crucial to most Earth systems, including the evolution of the hydrospher/atmosphere/biosphere, and the development of giant ore deposits. However, the origin, abundance, speciation and movements of fluids inside Earth are largely unknown, and represent key issues in modern geoscience. This CoE will integrate previously disparate fields - geology, tectonics, geochemistry, petrophysics, geophysics and dynamic modelling - to understand the workings of Earth's deep plumbing system.Read moreRead less
Constraining conditions and timing of orogeny and reworking in the west Musgrave Province. The remote Musgrave Province is one of Australia's prime areas of mineral exploration interest, with about 30 companies holding more than 120 leases over the region. A major factor determining the economic prospectivity of a terrane is the availability of high quality geoscientific data. This project will produce pre-competitive structural, petrological, isotopic, geochemical and geophysical datasets for t ....Constraining conditions and timing of orogeny and reworking in the west Musgrave Province. The remote Musgrave Province is one of Australia's prime areas of mineral exploration interest, with about 30 companies holding more than 120 leases over the region. A major factor determining the economic prospectivity of a terrane is the availability of high quality geoscientific data. This project will produce pre-competitive structural, petrological, isotopic, geochemical and geophysical datasets for the west Musgrave Province that will rival or surpass that available for other regions of Australian crust. This project directly aligns with the National Research Priority goal, developing deep Earth resources, and will reduce the risk to mineral explorers and facilitate economic development within the Ngaanyatjarra Native Title Lands of Western Australia.Read moreRead less
Roles of deep-Earth fluid cycling in the generation of intra-continental magmatism. This project aims to test a provocative and potentially ground-breaking hypothesis that fluid released from subducted oceanic slabs and stored in the mantle transition zone, may trigger or control some major intra-plate geotectonic phenomena. It aims to provide a self-consistent model that links geological processes occurring at plate boundaries with those far-field effects well away from plate boundaries via dee ....Roles of deep-Earth fluid cycling in the generation of intra-continental magmatism. This project aims to test a provocative and potentially ground-breaking hypothesis that fluid released from subducted oceanic slabs and stored in the mantle transition zone, may trigger or control some major intra-plate geotectonic phenomena. It aims to provide a self-consistent model that links geological processes occurring at plate boundaries with those far-field effects well away from plate boundaries via deep-Earth fluid cycling. The outcomes of this project aim to help to better understand links between plume and plate tectonic processes in the first-order dynamic system of Earth, and identify ways to improve success in future mineral exploration.Read moreRead less
East Antarctica: subglacial heat flux constraints for ice sheet modelling. This project aims to quantify the heat flux from the East Antarctic continent into the base of the ice sheet via the derivation of a large geochemical database, together with elevation-based modelling and new heat flux measurements in regions formerly contiguous with East Antarctica. This subglacial heat flux is poorly constrained in current ice sheet models, but directly affects ice sheet behaviour. The output of this pr ....East Antarctica: subglacial heat flux constraints for ice sheet modelling. This project aims to quantify the heat flux from the East Antarctic continent into the base of the ice sheet via the derivation of a large geochemical database, together with elevation-based modelling and new heat flux measurements in regions formerly contiguous with East Antarctica. This subglacial heat flux is poorly constrained in current ice sheet models, but directly affects ice sheet behaviour. The output of this project will be a greatly improved heat flux map for East Antarctica that can be used in ice sheet modelling studies. This should drive significant improvement in models for the evolution of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, resulting in more accurate projections of ice discharge and associated sea level change.Read moreRead less
Mapping mineral systems of deep Australia. We aim at enabling mineral resource discoveries by calibrating geophysical surveys using geochemical and petrophysical properties measured on mantle samples brought to the surface by recent volcanoes. National geophysical surveys deliver images of geophysical gradients in the deeper part of the Australian continent. The interpretation of these gradients in geological terms and in terms of economic mineral systems is the key to unlock deep exploration su ....Mapping mineral systems of deep Australia. We aim at enabling mineral resource discoveries by calibrating geophysical surveys using geochemical and petrophysical properties measured on mantle samples brought to the surface by recent volcanoes. National geophysical surveys deliver images of geophysical gradients in the deeper part of the Australian continent. The interpretation of these gradients in geological terms and in terms of economic mineral systems is the key to unlock deep exploration success. This project will turn Australia’s investment in National geophysical surveys into new discoveries of base metals. The benefit stems from enabling the transition to a clean economy which requires a much broader range of critical minerals and a larger quantity of base metals.Read moreRead less