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Industrial Mineral Opportuni1es in the Murray Basin
David Forster Senior Geologist – Industrial Minerals
Ginkgo Mine 2011
Murray Basin overview Palaeocene to Quaternary basin - NSW, South Australia and Victoria The Murray Basin records much of the ancient shorelines formed over the past six million years – generally overall prograding sequence for over 400 km to the present coast. World-‐class province for Heavy Mineral Sands Known and poten1al for : Bentonite, Kaolin and other clays Gypsum Salt Silica Largely untested poten1al for Lithum & mobile ions Hydrocarbons Uranium
-‐ Ginkgo Mine 2011 -‐ D. Forster
Murray Basin Stratigraphy
Cenozoic Early Fluvial sequences – then major prolonged regression deposition of the limestones and Geera clay. 1) Late Miocene – Low rates of sedimentation – sea-level fall - 2) Rapid late Micoene sedimentation. 3) Pliocene – Rapid trangression – re-mobilsation of sediments - formation of shoreface Loxton-Parilla Sands (Contemporaneous regressive back-barrier lagoons (Bookpoornong beds).
HM Accumulations Loxton-Parilla sands
Transgression then prograding shoreface sequences Loxton-Parilla sands
Whitehouse
LPS 40-70 m thick – in NSW. Re-mobilisation of Miocene barriers during the early Pliocene?
Murray Basin Magnetics – Strand lines • Typically 30 to 40 percent
ru?le and zircon in lower-‐grade deposits ~25% overall.
• Single, (Mainly in the south) • Mul?ple, stacked strandline
deposits, are oKen more than >10 m thick,
• Typically ~5 % HM with up to 20 % HM
• Up to several hundred meters Up to 10 to 25 km long.
Major Heavy Mineral sands deposits - NSW
Current Operations Ginkgo and Snapper Ginkgo – 205 Mt @ 3.3% HM (Pre-Mining Reserve) Snapper – 105 Mt @ 5.0% HM (2007)
New Heavy Mineral Sand Projects § Atlas & Campaspe – Cristal Mining
Australia § Atlas (Indicated) 11 Mt @ 15.4% HM § Campaspe (Indicated) 99 Mt @ 4.7% HM § 6.5Mt HM (contained) § As proposed – would create up to
200 new jobs in the region § 15-20 year mine life.
D. Forster
Industrial Mineral Opportunities in the Murray Basin
New Heavy Mineral Sand Projects § Iluka Resources Limited (Currently Mining at
Ouyen) – West Balranald & Nepean (Pre-feasibility stage – Processing Plant – Hamilton Victoria
§ Combined inferred resource 16.3 Mt @ 32.2% HM.
§ Nepean (Inferred) 8.9 Mt @ 26.5 Mt HM § West Balranald (Indicated) 29.5 Mt @ 26.5% HM § Region in need of economic stimulus.
Forster
Industrial Mineral Opportunities in the Murray Basin
.
New Heavy Mineral Sands Projects West Balranald & Nepean -‐ Extremely high-‐grade deposits
Combined inferred resource) 16.3 million tonnes @ 32.2% HM.
Courtesy Iluka Resources Limited
Industrial Mineral Opportuni?es in the Murray Basin
Ginkgo Mine 2011
Courtesy Iluka Resources Limited
Industrial Mineral Opportuni?es in the Murray Basin
West Balranald – Long Sec?on
Ginkgo Mine 2011
Industrial Mineral Opportuni?es in the Murray Basin
Courtesy Iluka Resources Limited
Heavy Mineral Sands- NSW Endowment
§ 48.75 Mt ilmenite (FeO.TiO2), § 11.25 Mt rutile (TiO2), § 6.5 Mt zircon (ZrO2.SiO2), § 5.62 Mt leucoxene (FeO.TiO2)
Ginkgo
0
200,000
400,000
600,000
2001-‐02
2002-‐03
2003-‐04
2004-‐05
2005-‐06
2006-‐07
2007-‐08
2008-‐09
2009-‐10
2010-‐11
2011-‐12 He
avy mineral San
ds
prod
uc1o
n (ton
nes)
Heavy mineral sands produc1on for NSW in 2001-‐2012 (in tonnes)
Total Ilmenite Ru?le
Image –Cristal Mining Australia
Industrial Mineral Opportunities in the Murray Basin
Copi deposit – 129 new holes and re-assay. Very high-grade intersections have been defined at shallow depths ranging from 8 to 42 metres, averaging 18 metres ¬ Hole CNA098 has returned 7 metres averaging 21.4% HM from 16 metres below surface and individual metre assays range to 34.5% HM ¬ Numerous holes contain >5 metre thick intervals of plus 10% HM
A new player – Broken Hill Prospecting Pty Ltd
12
% U % U % U
% U
% U
% U
S o u t h A u s t r a l i a
V i c t o r i a
N e w S o u t h W a l e s
HM Beach Placer
Offshore HM deposit
A
B
A
B
Murray Basin HM
Beach Placer Poten?al
Stacked placer deposits: thickness >10 m, wide (> 200 m), very large HM resources
Single placer deposits: thickness < 10 m, narrow (< 200 m), large HM resources
Murray Basin
Loxton-‐Parilla Sands
Main zone thick
beach placer deposits
??
Beach placer limit
Industrial Mineral Opportuni1es in the Murray Basin
U-‐Pb Cassiterite da?ng Laser-‐Abla?on ICPMS -‐ Previous da?ng studies include Sircombe 1999 (U-‐Pb on zircons) Jurassic source ages interpreted……..
Bentonite Arumpo Bentonite mine Sodium bentonite – up to 5 m thick • Arumpo Na (Mg- bentonite deposit 70.0Mt (Indicated) Est 1993 -
(In production). • Murray Basin - has Estuarine and back barrier environments –
depocentres for widespread, pure volcanic ash deposits ~2.5 Ma due to low aeolian or fluvial deposition.
• Arumpo clay has among world’s • highest external surface area • lowest permeability (CSIRO) • Ashfall deposit clays formed in saline marine sequence.
Arumpo Bentonite -‐ C Ricke2s
Industrial Mineral Opportuni1es in the Murray Basin – KAOLIN Roy et. al. (2000)
• Oaklands Kaolin deposit – current producer – thickly interbedded with quartz-‐rich sediments.
• Pure high quality white kaolin. • > 50 Mt of resources known Great untested poten?al for large deposits Oaklands-‐Coorabin area.
Kaolin
Oaklands Kaolin – J. Whitehouse Whitehouse
Industrial Mineral Opportuni?es in the Murray Basin GYPSUM
40000
90000
140000
190000
2007_8
2008_9
2009_10
2010_11
2011_12
2012_13
2013_14
Murray Basin Gypsum Produc1on 2007-‐ 2014
tonnes
C Ricke2s
Produc?on mainly for agricultural purposes. Previous produc?on for plasterboard and brick making (e.g. Paxtons)
SALTS
.
C. Rickeks
Groundwater quality in the Murray Basin is quite variable up to highly saline with over 300 000 mg/L of salts (Evans & Kellet 1989). Sunsalt – have two opera?ons in the Murray Basin – mainly for sodium salt. Recent Produc?on -‐ averaging ~25 000 tpa Typical analyses -‐ NaCl with magnesium = 860 ppm Sulphate – 3440 ppm Calcium – 515 ppm Potassium-‐ 128 ppm Iron – 23 ppm Iodine – 5 ppm
Regional Mineral Endowment (2009) of total endowment according to region ($)
Ginkgo Mine 2011 MinSys
Historical Produc?on ($)
MinSys
Total Endowment NSW = $387,376,068,494
Bentonite
Kaolin
Gypsum
Heavy Mineral Sands
Salt (2011-‐12)*
Murray Basin 2012-‐13 Produc1on (Tonnes)
1,385,810 t
4600 million megalitres, which is some 1500 ?mes the capacity of the Hume Reservoir on the headwaters of the Murray River. Little systematic investigation of • Coal seam methane, • coal and petroleum and • Uranium, • Water-‐borne resources within the Murray Basin. • Mobile ions – Li (CSIRO)
Other Potential – The Murray Basin