From Geoscience Australia
JSON format icon JSON RDF format icon RDF ISO19115-3 XML

The Southern Thomson Orogen VTEMplus® AEM Survey: Using airborne electromagnetics as an UNCOVER application

Created 17/10/2025

Updated 17/10/2025

JSON format icon JSON RDF format icon RDF ISO19115-3 XML

The Southern Thomson Orogen VTEMplus® AEM survey was undertaken as part of Geoscience Australia's contribution to the Australian Academy of Science's UNCOVER initiative, which has been adopted as part of the Australia Government's National Mineral Exploration Strategy. The aim of the survey was to demonstrate the application of AEM as an exploration tool under cover by generating new data and information regarding depth to basement and cover character. This information is provided to mineral explorers to assist reducing exploration risk by better targeting of drilling in the greenfields southern Thomson Orogen region. This report provides a background to the survey, including reviews of the basement and cover geology and mineral systems potential of the southern Thomson Orogen. We present the specifications of the airborne survey, and detail the innovative processing and inversion techniques that have been developed and applied to the AEM data. These inversion innovations have enabled the generation of higher precision information from the AEM data, resulting in higher confidence in geological and geophysical interpretations of the basement-cover interface and overlying basin stratigraphy. Data interpretation methods are presented, followed by a series of case studies demonstrating the effectiveness of the technique for identifying and mapping resistive basement, for characterising cover sequences, for mapping weathering products and for mapping post-depositional structures. The process and results of basement-cover interface mapping are presented along with conductivity characterisation and recognition of key stratigraphic (and hydrostratigraphic) units within the Eromanga and Lake Eyre basin cover sequences. Interpretation of a potential mineral system in resistive basement is discussed, and the utility of the technique for assessing the distribution and depth of weathering in basement rocks, along with interpretation of tectonic features, are also assessed. The application of AEM as a basement and cover mapping tool are clearly demonstrated and the potential utility of such techniques for reducing exploration risk in greenfields regions is clear. In the southern Thomson Orogen interpreted AEM data has the potential to assist in targeting exploration and drilling for shallowly-buried basement-hosted mineral systems to 150-200 m and in exploring for distal footprints within the overlying basin cover sequences.

Files and APIs

Tags

Additional Info

Field Value
Title The Southern Thomson Orogen VTEMplus® AEM Survey: Using airborne electromagnetics as an UNCOVER application
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/9d7f9297-252e-48e7-9b31-07c6524a23a0
Contact Point
Geoscience Australia Data
clientservices@ga.gov.au
Reference Period 20/04/2018
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
{
  "coordinates": [
    [
      [
        144.0,
        -31.0
      ],
      [
        147.0,
        -31.0
      ],
      [
        147.0,
        -27.0
      ],
      [
        144.0,
        -27.0
      ],
      [
        144.0,
        -31.0
      ]
    ]
  ],
  "type": "Polygon"
}
Data Portal Geoscience Australia

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Geoscience Australia "The Southern Thomson Orogen VTEMplus® AEM Survey: Using airborne electromagnetics as an UNCOVER application". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/the-southern-thomson-orogen-vtemplusa-aem-survey-using-airborne-electromagnetics-as-an-uncover-