Introduction The Earth’s lithosphere is its rigid outer shell, which rests on the more fluid asthenosphere. The thickness of the lithosphere varies, from a few kilometers at ocean spreading centers to 250-300 kilometers within continental cratons. There are two significant seismic boundaries in the crust and upper mantle: the Mohorovicic »
Let us ask an AI about the impact of AI on employment opportunities Q: Create a list of jobs that can be replaced with AI A: As AI technology continues to advance, there are several jobs that could potentially be replaced or significantly impacted by automation. However, it’s essential to »
The newly released film, “Oppenheimer“, directed by Christopher Nolan, seeks to examine the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer and indeed re-write the history of this pivotal figure in the rapid development of the first atomic weapons. My expectation was that Oppenheimer would dramatize the events surrounding the Manhattan Project and »
South32 has undertaken a review of the carrying value of the Hermosa Project consisting of the Taylor Zn-Pb-Ag deposit and the Clark Mn deposit. South 32 acquired the Hermosa Project through the all-cash offer for TSX listed Arizona Mining Inc. in August 2018, paying C$6.20 per share. This was a »
MINES AND MININGThe Brisbane CourierJune 30th 1923 The Cloncurry Field There is no question that the future of the Cloncurry copper field is of vital moment, not only to Queensland, but to Australia. Here we have some of the richest copper deposits in the British empire, but, possibly, through lack »
Siem Reap has 98km of new roads and new sidewalks much of which has been paved with interesting felsic intrusive rocks from quarries in Shandong Province in China. The composition ranges from granodiorite to tonalite and is locally granophyric and pegmatitic. The intrusive consists dominantly of plagioclase, quartz, pyroxene and »
This post is a summary and review of Murphy, B., Hjuizenga, J. and Bedrosian, P., 2022. Graphite as an electrically conductive indicator of ancient crustal-scale fluid flow within mineral systems. Earth and Planetary Science Letters. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2022.117700 Summary Magnetotelluric (MT) imaging has shown an apparent connection between crustal-scale electrical conductivity anomalies »
The purpose of this post is to delineate the key characteristics of the Mt Isa deposit from an explorer’s pragmatic perspective and then discuss a possible analogue in the Eastern Succession, north of Cloncurry. Beside the fascinating tectonic, geological and structural history of the Mt Isa region, it represents the »
At a regional scale the Mt Isa Cu and Zn-Pb-Ag deposits do not have a noticeable gravity or magnetic response. In addition there is little recent literature on the geophysical signature of the deposits and the data which is available is dated. Fallon and Busuttil 1992 and Valenta 2020 provide »
Discovery of the Mt Isa Copper Deposits Silver-lead ore was discovered at Mt Isa in 1923 but it was not until 1927 that a surface drill hole aimed to test silver-lead bodies at depth intersected 15 m of oxide copper and chalcocite grading 17% copper in the Black Rock area. »
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% »
This post is a review and summary of an excellent paper: Bradley Cave, Richard Lilly, Alexander Simpson, Lucy McGee, A revised model for the George Fisher and Hilton Zn-Pb-Ag deposits, NW Queensland: Insights from the geology, age and alteration of the local dolerite dykes, Ore Geology Reviews 154 (2023) 105311. »
Below is an exceptional article from the Queenslander of 1924. A remarkable record so soon after the discovery of Mt Isa and replete with the excitement of such a significant discovery. At the time of writing a mere 145 tons of ore had been shipped. The original has been transcribed »
This post is a summary of the interesting paper on the geodynamic relationships between Paleozoic arc development along the flanks of the interior (e.g. the Iapetus and Rheic) oceans and the exterior Paleopacific Ocean. Murphy, B., van Staal, C and Collins, W, A comparison of the evolution of arc complexes »
Some countries are patient and like golden eggs, some however like Turkey and seems that Queenslanders like Turkey a great deal indeed! »
Here is an excellent paper from Richard Henley et al that provides support for the argument that potassic alteration is largely isochemcial and and not an introduced component. Henley has elequently defined the porphyry copper environment as that of a dynamic, internally and externally stressed, gas phase reactor where repetitive »
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A large increase in drilling and production costs in the USA Shale Oil sector will likely slow the growth of production from the Permian Basins. To just maintain production hundreds of new wells must be drilled each year due largely to the rapid decline in tight wells. In the Permian »
Siem Reap has 98km of new roads and new sidewalks much of which has been paved with interesting felsic intrusive rocks from quarries in Shandong Province in China. The composition ranges from granodiorite to tonalite and is locally granophyric and pegmatitic. The intrusive consists dominantly of plagioclase, quartz, pyroxene and »
I recently had a chat with the Artificial Intelligence application, ChatGPT. ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is a chatbot launched by OpenAI in November 2022. It is built on top of OpenAI’s GPT-3 family of large language models, and is fine-tuned (an approach to transfer learning) with both supervised and reinforcement learning techniques. »
The Fagradalsfjall volcano in Iceland is located on the Reykjanes Peninsular which forms the onshore portion of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge system and erupted several times in 2021. »
A total of five provinces and the capital had been declared mine-free as of December, as Cambodia’s 2025 goal of becoming mine-free approaches. Stung Treng, Kep, Prey Veng, Preah Sihanouk and Tbong Khmum were declared mine free in December 2022 and Kampong Cham, Takeo, Kampong Chhnang, Kampot, Svay Rieng, and Kandal are expected to be mine-free in 2023. »
Mapped Arctic sea ice extent (SIE) on 09/02/2020 was 14.69 million km2 which is 270,000 km2 or 1.8% less than the 1979-2019 average. This is largest sea ice extent on this day since 2009 and is within 1 standard deviation of the 1979-2019 mean ice extent. »
Over the last 20 years at least there have been near continuous press reports of the near-term disappearance of the Maldives, a series of coral atolls in the Indian Ocean. The chain of 26 atolls stretches from Ihavandhippolhu Atoll in the north to Addu Atoll in the south with an »
January 11, 2020 Mapped Arctic sea ice extent (SIE) on this date was 13.34 million km2 which is 560,000 km2 or 4% less than the 2008-2018 median. This is largest sea ice extent on this day since 2016 The extent of Arctic sea ice varies from summer to winter. The sea »
Of recent times all the reporting on Australia has been little more than dire warnings and catastrophic coverage. There is however some positive news on the horizon. Australia’s climate is determined in large part by three major atmospheric circulatory systems, the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) the El Nino – Southern »
The bushfire drama in Australia has subsided for the moment so now is a good time to take stock. As of 7/1/2020, the bushfires have devastated an area in Victoria and New South Wales of 49,600 km2. In eastern Victoria the total burnt area was 12,100 km2 while in New »
January 4, 2020 Mapped Arctic sea ice extent (SIE) on this date was 13.12 million km2 which is 430,000 km2 or 3% less than the 2008-2018 median. This is largest sea ice extent on this day since 2014 and the 12th highest since 2000. We predict maximum SIE of »
January 3, 2020 Mapped Arctic sea ice extent (SIE) on this date was 13.176 million km2 which is 280,000 km2 or 2% less than the 2008-2018 median. This is largest sea ice extent since 2012 and the 12th highest since 2000. Sea ice is steading growing in the Bearing and »
