CSIRO-Uncover

[Music plays and text appears on screen: Uncovering Australia’s deep mineral wealth]

[Image changes to show animation of an outline of Australia, a gold and black pattern spreads across the map]

Narrator: Australia is a land bestowed with great natural riches and we have just scratched the surface of the potential which lies within. Most of our mining efforts have concentrated near to the surface.

[Animation changes to show brick like object stacking up as numbers count from 0 years to 150 years. The animation of Australia is now black]

But after a 150-years of mining we have exhausted our easily discoverable, near surface resources.

[Animation changes to show a new animation of the ground, a slice of ground is cut out and appears on screen as a multi-coloured rectangle]

Much of the countries mineral wealth is still hidden under a thick cover of unconsolidated rock and soil, sediments and igneous rocks.

[Image shows the rectangular cut out piece getting a new pink layer]

Eighty per cent of Australia’s landscape is undercover, tapping these resources by going beneath the cover; deeper exploration has the potential to reveal vast, new, high quality mineral deposits.

[Image changes to show the CSIRO logo with small animations representing different fields popping up below the logo]

Fortunately CSIRO is developing new skills, tools and cost effective approaches to make this possible through UNCOVER, Australia’s biggest geoscience initiative in one hundred years

[Image changes to show the word UNCOVER on screen and then words the narrator is speaking flash on screen]

involving government, research and industry, CSIRO is leading work to understand distil footprints, chemical and magnetic signatures left by minerals and developing tools that can point to perspective ore bodies that lie far below the surface.

[Image changes to show animation of land, represented by earthy colours of green and brown, with a water system moving through. CSIRO Logo displays in the centre of the animation]

We also look for clues in nature to help reduce costs and increase discoveries at depth.

[Image changes to show animation of gum trees with gold flecks on the leaves and then shows ants moving up a mound carrying gold flecks]

For example, we have developed techniques to find metal concentrations in plants, even ant and termite mounds.

[Animation changes to show a helicopter in the air with electro-magnetic equipment attached to it]

We are using airborne electro-magnetic systems to gather geophysical data and map conductive material below the surface.

[Animation changes to show a hydro-geochemical tool drilling through land to a water reservoir]

We have created hydro-geochemical tools to test ground water for traces of metals existing in covered ore bodies.

[Animation changes to show a geochemical halo]

We are unravelling the secrets of geochemical halos in sedimentary basins to understand their mineralising potential to target undercover exploration with more precision.

[Snippets of the animations played come together on the screen]

CSIRO’s undercover exploration research will support long-term prosperity arising from Australia’s mineral resources sector. Opening these new frontiers in mineral exploration and unlocking these resources is crucial for sustaining Australian mining.

[CSIRO logo appears on screen with text below it: Uncovering Australia’s deep mineral wealth]

[Music plays and CSIRO logo appears on screen with text: Big ideas start here www.csiro.au]