The product consists of 8,595 line kilometres of time‐domain airborne electromagnetic (AEM) geophysical data acquired over part of the Musgrave Province in South Australia. This product release also includes electrical conductivity depth images derived from the dataset, and the survey operations and processing report.
The data were acquired using the airborne High Moment TEMPEST® electromagnetic and magnetic system, which covered a survey area that includes the south western portion of the WOODROFFE 1:250K Map Sheet (Crombie, Carbeena and western half of the Eunyarinna 1:100K Map Sheets); the northwestern portion of the LINDSAY 1:250K Map Sheet (northern half of the Moombunya and Moolalpinna 1:100K map sheets and northwestern quarter of the Willinna 1:100K map sheet). The survey lines where oriented N-S and flown 2km line apart.
The survey was funded by the Government of South Australia, as part of the Plan for Accelerating Exploration (PACE) Initiative, through the Department of State Development, (DSD). The survey was managed by Geoscience Australia as part of a national collaborative framework project agreement with SA. The principal objective of this project was to capture a baseline geoscientific dataset to provide further information on the geological context and groundwater resource potential, of the central part of the South Australian Musgrave Province.
Geoscience Australia contracted CGG Aviation (Australia) Pty to acquire High Moment TEMPEST® electromagnetic and magnetic data, between August and September 2016. The data were processed and modelled by CGG using its in‐house processing conductivity depth transform techniques.
The Musgrave Province in far north of South Australia is one of the last true exploration frontier areas in Australia, which extends into Northern Territory and Western Australia. The Musgrave Province is composed primarily of granulite facies quartzo-feldspathic metasedimentary and meta-igneous rocks, and includes a suite of layered mafic to ultramafic intrusions known as the Giles Complex. This geological setting has proven to be highly prospective for Ni-Cu-PGE mineral systems in the bordering states. A good example of this is the discovery of the Nebo and Babel nickel-copper-PGE sulphide deposits in 2000, followed by a subsequent number of other nickel (Ni), copper (Cu) and gold (Au) discoveries.
In South Australia, major discoveries have eluded mineral explorers and exploration activity has fallen behind that of the Northern Territory and Western Australia. This divergence is largely due to issues around land access and a lack of contemporary precompetitive geoscientific information and data. The limited surface mapping combined with extensive regolith cover and incomplete geophysical, geochemical and geochronological data sets make it difficult for new explorers to fully appreciate the full economic potential of the Musgrave Province.
The regional AEM survey data will be used to inform the distribution of cover sequences that obscure the basement geology and provide insight into the variation and characteristics of the overlaying sequences. The increased definition in the distribution of cover sequences and their variation and characteristics of the overlaying sequences will allow explorers to better assess exploration opportunities in the area.
The new AEM data should also assist in the definition of the groundwater resource potential of the region and help characterise the pre-Pliocene palaeovalley systems known to exist in the region.
The selection of the survey area was undertaken through a consultative process involving the CSIRO, Geological Survey of South Australia and the exploration companies currently active in the region (including industry survey partner PepinNini Minerals Ltd).
The data will be available from Geoscience Australia’s web site free of charge. It will also be available through the South Australian Government’s SARIG website at https://map.sarig.sa.gov.au.
The data will also feed into the precompetitive exploration workflow developed and executed by the GSSA and inform a new suite of value-added products directed at the exploration community.
