The challenge
Growing Australia's resource base
CSIRO Minerals BU works across the minerals value chain to grow Australia’s resource base, increase the productivity of the minerals industry and reduce its environmental footprint, both in Australia and globally. The goal is to deliver science and technology options for the discovery and efficient development of Australia’s mineral resource endowment that will lead to $1 trillion in-situ value by 2030 and enable flow-on benefits to the wider national economy.
Our response
AuScope
The Minerals BU developed tools to generate and process deposit data for mineral exploration, such as the Satellite ASTER Geoscience Map of Australia, a Laterite and Calcrete atlas and HyLogger. The data is made available through the AuScope portal, which integrates distributed heterogeneous datasets. These tools jointly aim to improve the efficiency of mineral resource exploration.
Under the AuScope project, a partnership of 23 participants including CSIRO, Geoscience Australia, 11 universities, and state government agencies, CSIRO undertook research to improve the availability and accessibility of comprehensive geoscientific data to encourage investment in mining by improving the perception of prospectivity
The results
Improved exploration and reduced emissions
The main impacts in the AuScope case study are associated with improved exploration success as a result of better information. The following impacts of the package of work undertaken under AuScope were identified:
- Cost saving in exploration
- New minerals discoveries brought forward
- New mining activity
- Reduced emissions
The total attributable impacts from the AuScope project at full maturity is $444.5 million in (2013 $AUD)