Candice Marcus reports that exploration challenges are hampering South Australian uranium potential, the state Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission has heard. The mine site at Olympic Dam in the far north has the largest known uranium deposit in the world, but chief government geologist Steve Hill told the inquiry South Australia had untapped resources. He said the far-west of the state is a big black hole in geophysical knowledge.
The western third of South Australia only has less than half a dozen drill holes that pierce to the basement, that is an area bigger than most countries in Europe and we only have four to six holes that go all the way through and into the underlying rocks below, he explained to commissioner Kevin Scarce.
If we had cheaper, faster drilling this would do for those areas, not only in mineral exploration but in understanding groundwater and understanding the fundamental geology of the western part of South Australia. Dr. Hill said thick sediment was a logistical challenge to exploration across much of South Australia. The royal commission was told drilling was extremely expensive and most holes did not lead to discoveries. If it was easy, people would be making discoveries all the time, Dr Hill said.
A fairly conservative estimate is that 80% of South Australia has cover sediment that extends across the area, thereby concealing the underlying rocks. Things like river sediments, sand dunes, old marine sediments from when inland sea came into South Australia, and those depths can be anywhere greater than a kilometer to tens of meters. The chief geologist said the state had vast uranium potential.
Of course the first places to cover at the surface are the small salt lakes that occur in the area. In the 1960s, Michael D. Campbell, made a discovery that was never followed up in any detail. Groundwater discharge zones exhibited by many of these small lakes are the first places to look: See - https://i2mconsultants.com/downloads/mdcampbell/SouthAustraliaUEX.htm
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