australia's identified mineral resources 2005 - Geoscience Australia

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AUSTRALIA’S IDENTIFIED MINERAL RESOURCES 2005 Offshore Mineral Exploration in Commonwealth Waters The Commonwealth Offshore Minerals Act 1994 regulates exploration for and mining of minerals, other than petroleum, over the continental shelf three nautical miles beyond the territorial baselines (generally the low water mark) of the States and Territories. Applications for a mineral exploration licence (MEL) are made to the Designated Authority, usually the relevant State or Territory Minister responsible for mining. The initial term of a licence is four years and it may be renewed for three two year periods subject to the satisfactory performance of licence conditions. There is a mandatory reduction of 50% of the licence area on renewal of a MEL. As at May 2005, a total of 70 offshore MEL applications had been received since February 1990. Currently there is one active licence in Ringarooma Bay, Tasmania, where past exploration has identified an inferred tin resource of some 200 million bank cubic metres. Van Dieman Australia is currently investigating the viability of mining the onshore and offshore deposits. During 2004 interest returned to exploring for diamonds in the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf in the northwest of Australia. There are now four exploration license applications submitted for approval in the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, including two from Bonaparte Diamond Mines. This exploration is directed at discovering economic deposits of alluvial diamonds in offshore palaeochannels and tidal shoals. To date no diamonds have been discovered in Commonwealth waters, however, gem quality diamonds have been discovered adjacent to the Berkeley and Ord Rivers in State waters. On 15 November 2004, Australia made a submission to the United Nations Commission of the Limits of the Continental Shelf. The submission contains information on the proposed outer limits of the continental shelf of Australia beyond 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured. Consideration of the submission was included in the provisional agenda of the 15th session of the Commission in April 2005. Geoscience Australia completed a desktop review of Australia’s offshore minerals (McKay et al., 2005) as input to a workshop convened by CSIRO’s Wealth from Oceans National Research Flagship and Exploration and Mining Division (Yeats & McConachy, 2005). The review found that the discovery and eventual economic extraction of offshore mineral deposits pose significant technical, political and environmental challenges. Scientific as well as offshore exploration is needed to acquire data and build up geoscientific knowledge on known and new types of offshore mineral deposits, establish their distribution in Australia’s offshore regions and evaluate their possible wealth and future use. 84
AUSTRALIA’S IDENTIFIED MINERAL RESOURCES 2005 Appendix 1 Abbreviations and Acronyms ABARE Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics ABS Australian Bureau of Statistics A$ Australian dollar (where not stated, assume Australian currency) AEDR accessible economic demonstrated resources AIMR Australia’s Identified Mineral Resources BRS Bureau of Resource Sciences c carat cpt carats per tonne C$ Canadian dollar CSIRO Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation EAR-1 estimated additional resources – category 1 EDR economic demonstrated resources GIS geographical information system g grams g/t grams per tonne GL gigalitre Gt gigatonne IAEA International Atomic Energy Agency JORC Joint Ore Reserve Committee – Australasian Code for Reporting of Identified Mineral Resources and Ore Reserves kg kilogram km kilometre kt kilotonne (thousand tonnes) ktpa kilotonne per annum L litre lbs pounds m metre m 3 cubic metre Mc million carats MEL mineral exploration licence ML million litres Mlbs million pounds mm millimetre Moz million ounces Mt million tonnes Mtpa million tonnes per annum MW megawatt na not available NSW New South Wales NT Northern Territory OECD/NEA Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development/Nuclear Energy Agency oz ounces PDR paramarginal demonstrated resources PGM platinum-group metals ppm parts per million Qld Queensland RAB rotary air blast RAR reasonably assured resources RC reverse circulation SA South Australia SDR subeconomic demonstrated resources t tonne Tas. Tasmania tpa tonnes per annum U uranium U 3 O 8 uranium oxide USA United States of America USGS United States Geological Survey US$ United States of America dollar Vic. Victoria WA Western Australia $1 m million dollars 85
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australia's identified mineral resources 2005 - Geoscience Australia

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