The Mount Isa Province in northern Australia is one of the world’s most prospective regions for minerals. It hosts three of the ten largest Zn–Pb deposits in the world, the world-class sediment- hosted Mount Isa copper deposit, and the Ernest Henry IOCG. 

The Mount Isa copper (225 Mt at 3.3% Cu) and zinc-lead-silver ore (150 Mt at 7% Zn and 6% Pb) deposits are hosted within the Mesoproterozoic (1653 Ma) Urquhart Shale, an around 1000 m thick succession of carbonaceous, pyritic, dolomitic siltstone that belong to the Mt Isa Group, which lies within the Leichhardt River Fault Trough, and belongs to Calvert Superbasin in the Western Fold Belt of the Mt Isa Inlier.