| Popis: |
Tier 1 mineral resource discoveries are critical to maintaining Australia’s, and indeed the world’s, mineral resource inventory without continuing decline in the grade of mined resources. Such discoveries are becoming less common because, increasingly, remaining prospective, underexplored areas are obscured by deep, barren cover. We argue that improving the rate of Tier 1 discoveries obscured by deep, barren cover requires a step change in mineral exploration techniques that may be provided by “prospecting drilling,” i.e., extensive drilling programs that map mineral systems beneath cover, enabling geophysical and geochemical vectoring toward deposits. The technological platform for prospecting drilling must include low-cost drilling due to the dense subsurface sampling required. Low-cost drilling may be provided by transferring coiled tubing drilling technology, with its continuous drill pipe on a reel, from the oil and gas sector. Key challenges to the deployment of coiled tubing drilling in mineral exploration, i.e., its rate of penetration in hard rocks, the durability of coiled tubing, and the recovery of cuttings, are being assessed and addressed by researchers of the Deep Exploration Technologies Cooperative Research Centre (DET CRC). |
