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Metallogenic Endowment of Cratons, Belts and Districts: Do Bull Elephants roam in Herds?

Created 17/10/2025

Updated 17/10/2025

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The global distribution of mineral deposits in cratons, belts and districts shows that they are not equally and uniformly endowed with metal. Some cratons are highly fertile (e.g. Yilgarn Craton for Archaean greenstone gold and nickel) and there are those which are almost barren (e.g. Archaen greenstone belts in the Pilbara Craton). Within belts the distribution is equally non-uniform. For instance more than 80% of gold resources in the Yilgarn are concentrated in the Kalgoorlie Terrane of the Eastern Goldfields. At a first level the total endowment can be used to compare mineralised belts and districts, however the distribution of deposit sizes in them can provide a second level constraint on their fertility, in particular the nature and intensity of metal accumulation versus metal dispersion. More enigmatic from this point of view are belts and districts in which the total metal endowment is contained in one or two giant and/or super-giant deposits, such as the Broken Hill in New South Wales, Norilsk-Talnakh in Western Siberia, and Olympic Dam in South Australia. These mjaor deposits represent single "bull elephants" in an "elephant country". Cumulative frequency distribution curves of metals of major mineralized cratons, belts and districts are used to compare the nature of their metal endowment. The analysis shows that the curves of "elephant-bearing" belts and districts are remarkably different from those of "average" belts and districts, and that regional and/or district scale geological factors could have played a significant role in controlling metal endowment. A comparison of curves for belts and districts with similar endowment can be used to assess potential for yet to be discovered deposits and to assess their relative size.

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Field Value
Title Metallogenic Endowment of Cratons, Belts and Districts: Do Bull Elephants roam in Herds?
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/d3bd5071-d3cc-43ad-8b92-c9f8add1b665
Contact Point
Geoscience Australia Data
clientservices@ga.gov.au
Reference Period 22/04/2018
Geospatial Coverage Australia
Data Portal Geoscience Australia

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Geoscience Australia "Metallogenic Endowment of Cratons, Belts and Districts: Do Bull Elephants roam in Herds?". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/metallogenic-endowment-of-cratons-belts-and-districts-do-bull-elephants-roam-in-herds