Exploring for the Future – Darling-Curnamona-Delamerian project

The Australian Government’s Exploring for the Future program, led by Geoscience Australia, is committed to supporting a strong economy, resilient society and sustainable environment for the benefit of Australians. At its heart, the program is about contributing to a sustainable, long-term future for Australia through an improved understanding of the nation’s mineral and energy potential and groundwater resources.
Since 2016 the program has been working in Northern Australia to understand the potential for buried resources in underexplored areas. The program‘s focus now includes the southern half of the continent, with deep dive projects in potentially resource-rich corridors that stretch across the country. Continental-scale projects are developing a national picture of mineral, energy and groundwater resources. The Darling-Curnamona-Delamerian (DCD) project - This deep dive project will investigate the mineral potential of the Curnamona Province and Delamerian Orogen in eastern South Australia, western New South Wales, western Victoria and western Tasmania. It will investigate the mineral and groundwater potential of overlying basins including the Murray-Darling Basin and the upper Darling River floodplain. The DCD project will encourage mineral and groundwater resource exploration and discovery and document new methods for exploring for mineral deposits through the overlying sedimentary basin cover. The project will acquire new data and create new understanding to improve drought resilience in communities and help to provide baseline environmental data for a sustainable future. New resource systems syntheses will stimulate the creation of business and employment opportunities, particularly in the Broken Hill region. Proposed key activities will include new multi-scale geophysical data acquisition (airborne electromagnetics, magnetotellurics, deep reflection seismic, surface magnetic resonance and downhole geophysics); stratigraphic and groundwater drilling; hydrogeochemical, geochronological and geochemical sampling and analysis; and integration of these new data with historical and state data to deliver geological framework understanding and resource potential assessments. The project will work collaboratively to complement state government and MinEx CRC initiatives in the region