Geoscience Australia, Canberra, Australia
Patrice’s university training is in geology, mineralogy and geochemistry, and his research interests include environmental, exploration and isotope geochemistry, hydrogeochemistry, low-density geochemical mapping, and soil forensic provenancing. He is Principal Research Scientist at Geoscience Australia, and is also a Visiting Fellow at the Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University (ANU), and Adjunct Professor at the University of Canberra. In 2017-2018, Patrice was seconded to the Australian Federal Police. He holds a Lic Sci (BSc Hons) degree from the University of Louvain (Belgium), and PhD from the ANU. He has published over 160 scientific papers, reports, chapters, and books (h-index 44).
The Heavy Mineral Map of Australia project: Vision, pilot and first data release
In this talk we will review the utility of heavy mineral surveys in exploration, lament the paucity of public/precompetitive heavy mineral datasets in Australia, and present a vision to bridge that gap and hopefully fulfil that potential: the Heavy Mineral Map of Australia (HMMA) project. Using an archived collection of sediment samples covering most of Australia, we report on a pilot project designed to test if these samples were suitable for heavy mineral surveys. Then we discuss a partial HMMA data release over a nearly one million square kilometre area centred around Broken Hill. Finally we present a bespoke mineral network analysis tool that allows the effective mining of this vast dataset for uncovering interesting HM patterns and associations.