GEMOC ARC National Key Centre

Introducing GEMOC

GEMOC's strategic focus

The main targets of GEMOC’s founding 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. These have broadened during 2003 to involve whole-mantle perspectives of geodynamics, and far-field and feedback effects involving the lithosphere.

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 a significant part of the ongoing funding. Our industry interaction is largely based in strong collaboration; interchange of concepts and discussions on GEMOC strategies relevant to industry needs is invaluable in maintaining our focus on industry relevance.

The increasing industry collaboration with 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] funding, like a good investment portfolio has a healthy diversity ... across competitive traditional schemes, ... to substantial industry collaborative projects, provision of value-added products to the mineral exploration industry and one-off opportunities such as the DEST Systemic Infrastructure Intitiative"

GEMOC’s Context

A SHORT HISTORY OF GEMOC: The National Key Centre for the Geochemical Evolution and Metallogeny of Continents (GEMOC) formally commenced in January 1996 and was funded under the ARC Key Centre scheme for 6 years.  Under the government regulations for this round of Key Centres, there was no provision for extension of Centre funding beyond the original 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 started its new phase in 2002 with an independent well-funded base for the next five years.

GEMOC’S FUNDING BASE FROM 2002:  This funding, like a good investment portfolio, has a healthy, risk-minimising diversity ranging across competitive traditional schemes such as those available from the Australian Research Council, to substantial industry collaborative projects, provision of value-added products to the mineral exploration industry (see the section on Industry Interaction ) and one-off opportunities such as the competitive DEST Systemic Infrastructure Initiative in 2002 that granted over $5 million to enable GEMOC’s Technology Development Program to stay at the forefront (see the section on Technology Development ).

GEMOC’S LINKAGES AND ALLIANCES:  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 significantly evolved and expanded from its original base with shifts in the original linkages. Interaction with CSIRO and GA has grown and transformed over the six years. Strong new national and international collaborative research links and programs have emerged and robust ongoing engagement with industry (mineral exploration and technology manufacturing) partners through collaborative projects has fulfilled one of GEMOC’s original goals.

MISSION 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

SCIENTIFIC PHILOSOPHY

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...

petrology and geochemistry ~ geophysics ~ petrophysics ~ tectonics ~ numerical modelling

within the important contexts of...

time (the 4th dimension) and thermal state

to understand the significance of large-scale mantle and crustal domains and the processes that have formed and modified them.

The front cover for this 2003 Report emphasises this integration from field to laboratory to the global scale of our lithosphere studies as well as the interface with geophysical datasets. The present-day timeslice of the seismic character of the deep Earth cannot give us the time perspective to unravel over 4 billion years of Earth’s evolution. However, this is provided by the petrological samples of the mantle delivered to the Earth’s surface at different (and measurable) times by tectonism or magmatism.

Parallel advances in the integration of geophysical and geochemical information to model and image the lithosphere and its properties continue to be driven by our desire to solve more of the intriguing questions about how the Earth has evolved, especially now that we have developed many novel geochemical tools to date important events in the mantle and crust and have made so many fundamental new discoveries about the life and times of lithospheres (see Research Highlights and Technology Development sections). These advances mesh with end-user needs and the knowledge required to solve major geological problems.

"GEMOC’s founding activities have broadened during 2003 to involve whole-mantle perspectives of geodynamics and far-field and feedback effects involving the lithosphere."

GEMOC Board meeting 2003 (details available at www.es.mq.edu.au/ GEMOC/).

STRATEGIC OUTCOMES

These were the founding strategic aims in 1995 and are still serving GEMOC well even though there has been much evolution in our understanding and much development of novel methodologies to address these aims.

• fundamental insights into the processes that create and modify the continental mantle and crust through time
   
• a better understanding of the assembly of the Australian continent and its geological architecture to 100-200 km depth through work in Australia and global analogues
   
• results and concepts exportable to other terrains, including Southeast Asia and other potentially resource-rich areas of interest to Australian exploration companies
   
• a new conceptual framework for understanding the localisation of economic deposits, that will influence exploration strategies for world-class ore deposits, and improve the competitiveness of the Australian exploration industry both on- and off-shore
   
• a realistic 3-D geological framework for the interpretation of lithospheric-scale geophysical datasets
   
• a training program for senior undergraduate and postgraduate students (and continuing education) that will help maintain the technological edge of the Australian mineral industry and improve the industry’s ability to rapidly assimilate new concepts and methodologies
   
• new analytical strategies for determining the chemical and isotopic compositions of geological materials (including fluids)
   
• development of in situ analytical methods (including dating) to maximise information encoded in mineral zoning and to enhance interpretation of data using spatial contexts
   
• strategic and collaborative alliances with technology manufacturers in design and application innovation

This report documents achievements of these goals

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