Our vision is of an environmentally healthy, wealthy Australia where regolith geoscience plays a fundamental role in mineral discovery and land management. Our mission is to create breakthroughs in mineral exploration and environmental management through generating and applying new knowledge of the regolith. In doing so we will develop LEME and its core participants into global leaders in regolith research and its application to mineral exploration and natural resources management. The objectives of CRC LEME are to: 2 Executive Summary 11 Reflections Provide the mineral industry with world-leading capabilities leading to breakthroughs in exploration in 20 Context and Major Developments During the Year Australia’s extensive areas of cover. 21 National Research Priorities Provide essential multidisciplinary knowledge of 24 Governance and Management Australia’s regolith environments, to deliver this 28 Research Programs knowledge in readily useable forms, and ensure that it 28 Research activities and achievements is transferred into practice in the minerals industry and environmental management. 54 Research collaborations 61 Commercialisation and Utilisation Provide high quality, geoscience-based education for those entering the minerals industry, land-care and 61 Commercialisation and Utilisation Strategies and Activities environmental realms and to provide continuing 61 Intellectual Property Management education for those already involved. 62 Communications and Publications Inform and guide decision-makers in the Federal and 88 End-User Involvement and CRC Impact on End Users State policy areas about the relevance and 89 Education and Training contribution to Australia’s future of the Centre’s research. 96 Performance Measures 102 Specified Personnel 108 Financial Information 112 Audit © Cooperative Research Centre for 114 Glossary and Acronyms Landscape Environments and Mineral Exploration December 2008 ISSN 1447-4395 Regolith is the surface blanket of material including weathered rock, sediments, soils and biota that forms by the natural processes of weathering, erosion, transportation and deposition. It has complex architecture, and may vary in thickness from a few centimetres to hundreds of metres. It hosts or hides valuable mineral deposits, we live on it, we grow our food in it, it is the foundation of many major engineering works, and much of our water supplies are stored in it. It underpins our economic, social and infrastructure systems. The Cooperative Research Centre for Landscape Environments and Mineral Exploration (LEME) is an unincorporated joint venture that brings together groups from the Australian National University CSIRO Exploration and Mining and CSIRO Land and Water Curtin University of Technology Geoscience Australia Minerals Council of Australia New South Wales Department of Primary Industries Primary Industries and Resources South Australia The University of Adelaide PAGE 1 PAGE CRC LEME FINAL ANNUAL REPORT 2007–2008 Executive Summary Well, despite a major mining boom and the fact that a number of Chairman’s Report 2008 Postgraduate students deferred to take jobs in the industry, we expect to have delivered 54 Postgraduate students and 117 Honours students before we fold our tent for the last time on 31st December, 2008. Mr George Savell But what else has the CRC achieved? Perhaps the most notable thing is that during the past several years This Annual Report is the last that Cooperative Research Centre – many agricultural disciplines as well as a good many mineral Landscape Environment and Mineral Exploration (CRC LEME) will explorers have come to understand the importance of regolith research. publish. In agriculture, and in the question of dry land salt particularly, our It provides a vehicle to not only talk about immediate matters scientists have demonstrated time and again that the only cure such as legacy products, but an opportunity to cast a long look worth having is one which defines and treats the cause not the back over the road we have travelled to reach this point. In that effect. By unlocking the mechanics of the Regolith and its systems, respect I draw your attention to the messages provided by Dr Ross long-term solutions to many problems become possible. Fardon, Dr Ray Smith and Dr Dennis Gee, all of whom have Clearly we have not reached total understanding yet and there is a contributed very creditably to the life and times of both long way to go, particularly in mineral exploration systems but a incarnations of these Regolith CRCs. They can be found in the good start has been made. section titled “Reflections”. It is my personal view that a monumental mistake was made in There is no doubt that CRC LEME has been a very successful CRC. not seeking to turn the CRC LEME into a Research Institute to The project outcomes, legacy products and open research paths continue the Regolith work it started into an on-going specialist illustrate this fact more clearly than the spoken word. The science. It is not hard to demonstrate a community benefit far students, researchers and research managers can be justly proud of beyond its current work. What is needed is a co-ordinated group their achievements. The road has been long, and sometimes rocky, capable of supplying expert guidance to Governments and but never boring. This feature of the organisation has made the industry alike in all areas where Regolith matters are part of the tasks set for us very interesting. scientific equation. We pass the regolith baton to the new generation and trust they It is also appropriate to comment on the CRC system generally will seize it and forge on to the ultimate victory, the holy grail of and to look at the many obvious flaws which have emerged over complete understanding of the mysterious processes which form the years. the complete regolith. We can only hope as we enter the final few One very pertinent area is political influence. I recall clearly the months of the CRC LEME’s existence. Howard Government’s classic mistake in announcing that The past year has been exceptionally busy for administrators, “commercial” CRC applications would be viewed more favourably researchers and, indeed, the CRC’s Governing Board. than “public good” applications. It obviously never dawned on them that this was a clear distortion of research needs and they The CRCs’ support staff were fully occupied with not just routine were trying to pick winners, which no Government is ever very work but wind-up strategies, run-out budgeting to ensure funds good at doing. Now, of course, all is forgiven and more normal would last until termination date, and the full and final times have returned “public good” is no longer bad. reimbursements to research providers for each project which was To co-ordinate a programme of real worth, however, what is not transferred to another party for ongoing work. The whole needed is a council of senior scientists who review all the exercise was akin to a master juggler’s premier performance. applications made to establish what research is vital to Australia’s Indeed, long time Business Manager, Gary Kong, met every future, free of politics and short-term considerations. This would challenge and in a timely and professional way; kept the process kill two birds with one stone by containing the effort to producing on track and on budget throughout. needed answers and focussing available funds more effectively. The Program Leaders delivered outcomes from a multitude of Lastly, I wish to thank loyal Head Office staff members and most concluding projects. The Board’s congratulations are recorded to especially the students and staff who made the CRC success one and all for a job well done. possible. I also thank my fellow Board Members for their When CRC LEME received its grant and thus acceptance as a dedicated service to the CRC. It has been a pleasure working with second round continuation of the original organisation I was you on such worthwhile issues. there and recall the incredulous looks and exclamations by the Farewell and good luck in your future endeavours. Funding Committee Members when Ray Smith told them the plan to achieve an outturn of 60 Postgraduate students and 60 Honours students during the life of the organisation. George A. Savell PAGE 2 PAGE CRC LEME FINAL ANNUAL REPORT 2007–2008 Chief Executive Officer’s Report Executive SummaryExecutive Ms Lisa Worrall Dr Steve Rogers This final Chief Executive Officer’s report is jointly authored by Case Study A: Eucla Basin Steve Rogers and Lisa Worrall – reflecting the transition from Background Steve to Lisa during CRC LEME’s wind up period. The palaeo-shorelines of the Eucla Basin provide information critical to understanding the landscape evolution and Cainozoic LEME DELIVERY marine flooding events in south-western Australia. The shoreline sediments are also highly prospective for zircon and other heavy It is with great pleasure that we can report that CRC LEME has met minerals. CRC LEME established a correlation between offshore all of its objectives. marine sediments and their poorly-constrained onshore CRC LEME has ‘provided the minerals industry with world-leading equivalents, providing new insight into the extent and timing of capabilities leading to breakthroughs in exploration in Australia's major sea level fluctuations over the period 38 to 10 Million years extensive areas of cover.’ For example, CRC LEME research was ago. instrumental in identifying new exploration targets for heavy This knowledge was applied to: minerals sands explorers on the South Australian margin of the constructing models for heavy mineral accumulation in fossil Eucla Basin, and in opening up a new mineral province (see Case beach deposits along the Eucla Basin margin, Study A). refining techniques to map onshore sediments resulting in a The Centre has also led the way in the development of cost- 1:2,000,000 scale map of Palaeodrainage and Tertiary Coastal effective, reliable and practical exploration techniques in the areas Barriers of South Australia.