GEMOC ARC National Key Centre

• to  create a new paradigm for the formation of  metallogenic provinces by undertaking fundamental research on the evolution of the upper 200 km of the Earth's crust-mantle system, integrating petrological, geochemical and geophysical information

 
• to give the Australian minerals exploration industry a competitive edge into the 21st century by transferring this new knowledge base and the methodologies to the industry and to the next generation of students

THE NATIONAL KEY CENTRE for the Geochemical Evolution and Metallogeny of Continents (GEMOC) formally commenced in January, 1996.  Funding started from July 1995 on very short notice, so GEMOC has operated on a 6-month delay with fund rollover.  Under the original government regulations for this round of Key Centres, there was no provision for extension of Commonwealth Key Centre funding beyond the six-year term.  A detailed business plan was required in the application to demonstrate how the Centre could continue and maintain its identity after the Commonwealth funding term.  This business plan has succeeded and the evolved GEMOC has viable funding for the next 5 years.

GEMOC was initially based on the pre-1995 collective profiles of the core participants at Macquarie and the networked group at ANU (Faculties), with collaborative links to CSIRO , AGSO (now Geoscience Australia (GA)) and colleagues at other Australian Universities.  GEMOC has diversified and expanded from this base with shifts in the original linkages.  The industry- and technology-related projects evolved to become the strongest links with ANU especially with Professor Bruce Chappell's relocation to Macquarie.  Interaction with CSIRO and GA have grown and transformed over the six years.  Strong new national and international collaborative links and programs have extended from the original core activities and participants of GEMOC.
 

The main targets of GEMOC's activities were defined to be large-scale problems related to lithosphere evolution and understanding the relevance of different types of crust-mantle domains to area selection for mineral exploration.

Despite the coincidence of GEMOC's term with a time of increasingly contracting activities in the mineral exploration climate, our industry interaction has steadily increased and now forms an important part of the ongoing funding.

The increasing number of collaborative funded projects related to lithosphere evolution and crustal generation studies has fulfilled one of our major strategic goals of delivering new tools and a new framework of terrane analysis to the minerals exploration industry.  Some of these new tools and concepts are summarised in the Research Highlights , and the Technology Development section.
 

GEMOC's distinctiveness lies in its interdisciplinary and integrated approach to interpreting Earth's lithosphere as a 4-dimensional dynamic system (in space and time).

This approach links...

The front cover for the 2001 Report emphasises the global context and relevance to the evaluation of complex Earth models.

Parallel advances in the integration of geophysical and geochemical information to model and image the lithosphere and its properties continue to be driven by end-user needs and the knowledge required to solve major geological problems.

Norm Pearson and Andy Burrows see the light in the MC-ICPMS