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Mineral Resources Tasmania

Regional Airborne Geophysical Survey Completed

The magnetic and radiometric survey on behalf of Mineral Resources Tasmania in collaboration with Geoscience Australia (GA), has been completed. Contractors demobilised on April 2, with data processing and QA/QC to be concluded soon.

With extra funding made available by GA as part of the Federal Government’s Exploring for the Future program, the survey was extended significantly beyond the boundaries outlined in the Dec-Jan 2021 issue of MRT News. The aim of Exploring for the Future is to drive investment in the resources and agricultural sectors by providing industry and land and water managers with pre-competitive data about potential mineral, energy and groundwater resources.

As shown in the figure, the swath of new high quality data (200 m-spaced E-W flight lines, 80 m terrain clearance) extends over half way across the island, from the upper Forth River to the east coast. In addition to traversing many of Tasmania’s most significant geological units and structures, including potential sub-surface extensions of the Mt Read Volcanics, the survey bridges a long-standing gap in the State’s geophysical coverage between the main body of data in the north and west and the 1999 southern Midlands survey.

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Figure 1. Location of survey blocks (green outline) flown February-April 2021.  Blocks 1-3 were acquired as originally planned by MRT, with the extension to blocks 4 and 5 enabled by provision of an extra $250,000 by Geoscience Australia. Block 1 was acquired with a fixed-wing aircraft, and the remainder by helicopter. Horizontal black lines indicate previous similar surveys constituting the existing coverage.

Derived grids as well as processed line data will be made available from both GA and MRT portals as soon as possible after final product receipt from the contractors.

It is anticipated that magnetic and radiometric coverage will be further expanded in the near future, as the new projects announced by the Federal Government in March 2021 as part of its $125 million expansion of the Exploring for the Future program, are rolled out.