MinEx CRC, a $218 million research collaboration aimed at developing technologies to increase the discovery of new mineral deposits, was launched Monday 15th in Adelaide by the Hon Dan van Holst Pellekaan MP, Minister for Energy and Mining. Though the efforts of the 21st Century Resources Frontier Research Theme, RSES and ANU will be part of this initiative. Photo shows (right) the Chairman of the Board, Chris Pigram, the Hon Dan van Holst Pellekaan MP, Minister for Energy and Mining, and MinEX CRC Andrew Bailey (left). The MinEx Cooperative Research Centre (MinEx CRC) has secured $50 million in Federal Government CRC funding, as well as strong industry and research backing. Participants include 34 partners from the Mining Equipment, Technology and Services (METS) sector and major miners BHP, South32, Anglo American and Barrick committing $165 million (cash and in-kind) over the next 10 years.   

Rebecca McGirr (PhD student) and Dr Paul Tregoning(AD Mentoring) attended the GRACE/GRACE FO Science Team Meeting in Potsdam, Germany from 9-11 October. This was the first Science Team meeting since the launch of the GRACE Follow-On mission in May 2018. Rebecca gave a presentation on her work that involves the calibration of accelerometers on-board the GRACE satellites and showed how to estimate accurate gravity fields in the presence of temperature-related, long wavelength spurious signals in the accelerometer observations. The topic of the presentation was very pertinent, given the sub-optimal performance of the accelerometers onboard one of the GRACE FO satellites.

The 9th International SHRIMP Workshop

The 9th International SHRIMP Workshop, a gathering of people from SHRIMP labs around the world, was hosted by the Korea Basic Science Institute (KBSI) from September 10 to 14. It was held at two venues; KBSI Ochang centre and Gyeongju National Museum. Six members of the RSES SHRIMP group attended the conference. Pre-workshop sessions on 10 September (SIMS developments and imaging) concluded with a tour of the impressive analytical facilities at KBSI and an icebreaker. Apart from the very interesting plenary lectures on TOF-SIMS and using SHRIMP for analysing biominerals, other sessions on the following days included “New advances in SHRIMP analyses” and “Recent trends in SHRIMPing”. A tutorial session on the new SQUID 3.0 software for processing SIMS data was well received and appreciated by the SHRIMP community. Less well received was the announcement by the CEO of Australian Scientific Instruments that ASI would cease manufacturing and servicing SHRIMPs after the new SHRIMP V is delivered to the Shandong Institute of Geological Sciences in late 2019. The ANU has signed an agreement to transfer these roles to a new company in China, DUNYI (Beijing) Technology Development Co. Ltd (DTDC). The CEO of the new company is Prof. Liu Dunyi, former Director of the Beijing SHRIMP Centre. The mid-conference field excursion took us to Cheongsong UNESCO Global Geopark. The cliffs, gorges and magnificent waterfalls at the place were a visual treat. We also visited Seoak Seowon, which is a Confucian academy where scholars where taught during the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1897).The last day of the conference included a guided exploration of the UNESCO World Heritage Site in the historical capital of Korea, Gyeongju. The city has significant archaeological remains, including the most beautiful Bulguksa temple, pagodas and royal tombs.

Asteroids and crustal evolution – synopsis of a new book

Thanks to their long-term geological stability, Precambrian and younger terrains in the Australian continent contain a large number of impact structures and probable impact structures. These include 38 confirmed asteroid impact structures and 43 ring structures, many of which constitute possible to probable asteroid impact structures. These structures have been the subject of more than half a century of studies by geologists from universities, geological surveys, and related institutions. The structures range from several tens of meter-large craters, such as the Henbury and Veevers craters, to buried structures larger than 100 km in diameter, such as the Woodleigh impact structure and the Warburton probable impact structure. Discoveries and research of many of these structures, notably by Peter Haines, Eugene and Caroline Shoemaker, John Gorter, Robert Iasky, Victor Gostin, George Williams, and others, published in the literature, are reviewed in the book “Asteroid Impacts, Crustal Evolution, and Mineral Systems with Reference to Australia.” The book presents a compilation and a review of Australian impact structures, impact ejecta/fallout deposits, and related mineralization, including discussion of the significance of many of these structures for crustal evolution and for mineralization. The book further reviews asteroid impact ejecta/fallout units, mainly of Archaean age studied in the Pilbara Craton of Western Australia and also the late Proterozoic Bunyeroo impact layer in South Australia. Discoveries of impact fallout units in the Pilbara Craton by the US scientists, including Bruce Simonson, Scott Hassler, Don Lowe, and Gary Byerly, and their students and follow-up discoveries and research by Australian geologists have defined the Pilbara as one of the two best documented terrains where Archaean impact ejecta/fallout deposits are identified, the other terrain being the Kaapvaal Craton in southern Africa. A synthesis of evidence from both cratons indicates periods of large asteroid bombardments during ~3.47–2.48 billion years ago, including peak bombardment about 3.25–3.22 billion years ago. The latter period coincides with an abrupt transformation of an early Archaean granite–greenstone crust to mid- to late Archaean semi-continental crustal regimes, underpinning the significance of heavy asteroid impact events for crustal evolution. Thermal and hydrothermal processes associated with impact cratering bear important consequences for the formation of mineral deposits, such as Ni at Sudbury and Pb–Zn at Siljan and Kentland. Impact structures may also provide sites for accumulation of hydrocarbons, whereas in some instances fracturing associated with impact structures allows outward migration of oil and gas.

Our EMSC3025: Groundwater students have completed two fieldtrips throughout the semester to complement the lectures and workshops delivered on the themes of physical and chemical hydrogeology.

The first field trip was a day-trip in late-August to the township of Bungendore, where they are reliant on the water resources of the Bungendore Alluvium for their town supply.  We visited bores operated by Queanbeyan-Palerang Council to monitor this water resource and groundwater in neighbouring aquifers, and collected data relating to the bore construction and groundwater levels at each site.  The students utilised this information to prepare an assessment report describing the groundwater potentiometric surface and how this relates to groundwater flow.  

This was followed up by a weekend fieldtrip down to the Monaro Region in late-September where we explored the changing geology, the resultant geomorphology, and how this may influence geochemistry of groundwater and surface water in the region.  The students used an assortment of sampling techniques to collect representative water samples for laboratory analysis, and utilised field analytical instrumentation (physicochemical probes, hand alkalinity titrator, and a UV-VIS spectrophotometer) to collect further geochemical information.  We were fortunate enough to see one of the original groundwater wells that were dug during European settlement, and the overnight stay in Jindabyne was a nice break from the information-packed days!

The students are currently interpreting the geochemical data and compiling their assessment reports, which should make for some great reading over the coming weeks!

These field trips are not only a great way to see some of the beautiful country side only a stone’s throw away from Canberra, but a great hands-on experience for the budding hydrogeologists to gain an appreciation for the work that goes into collecting hydrological and hydrogeochemical data.  The field trips have also been a great way for them to apply the concepts we have explored throughout the semester.  We could not have done this without access to groundwater bores, so we would like to whole-heartily thank the Queanbeyan-Palerang Regional Council, Snowy-Monaro Regional Council, and various private landholder holders for their support and access to their bores.

We hope the students enjoyed the time away from the classroom, and we wish them all the best for their exams and in their future endeavours.

The Mars InSight mission

InSight, short for "Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport", is a lander designed to study Mars' interior structure. Landing in November 26th, 2018, it will seek answers about the early formation of rocky planets in our inner solar system. The InSight lander carries a seismometer, SEIS, that will record seismic waves traveling through the red planet. This will tell us what might be creating the waves (marsquakes, meteorite impacts), and what are the physical characteristics of the solid interior of Mars in terms of temperature, composition, and major stratigraphic boundaries.

During its journey through interplanetary space, the spacecraft carrying the InSight lander communicates to Earth via the 34-meter DSS-36 antenna of the Canberra Deep Space Station (DSN) in Australia. RSES will be involved in the analysis of the seismic data trhough collaboration with Lyon University and IPGP, in France. Investigations will be related to the nature of the dichotomy of the Martian crust, which is thicker with higher surface topography at south, and thinner with lower elevations at north. The approach will combine satellite observations to constrain the geology, the construction of seismic models from thermal convection simulations, and the simulation of marsquakes and seismic wave-propagation for comparison with observed data. The ultimate objective is to constrain Mars' thermal evolution, and have insight into how the terrestrial planets, such as Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars, have formed.

Contact: Benoit Tauzin, benoit.tauzin@anu.edu.au

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