Geoscientists from the Western Australian Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety’s Geological Survey of Western Australia (GSWA) have just travelled to China for a month-long mineral geological study with fellow colleagues from the China Geological Survey (CGS).
Manager Minerals Geoscience, Trevor Beardsmore said the study formed a part of a continuing series of exchanges between CGS and GSWA under a Memorandum of Understanding between the two surveys and followed an earlier visit by Chinese geoscientists to Western Australia in May and June this year.
“We are in the second year of a three-year project with CGS that involves cooperative research on nickel sulphide mineral systems in China and Western Australia,” Dr Beardsmore commented.
“Our aim is to better understand their origin and therefore improve the chance of discovering new deposits in Western Australia.”
“Our CGS colleagues are active in mineral deposit studies and they are working with us on studies of nickel mineralisation in the Eastern Goldfields,” Dr Beardsmore explained.
GSWA’s China study includes field visits to the giant, newly-discovered Jinchuan and Xiarihamu nickel deposits, which will give the Australian geologists the opportunity to sample the host intrusions and collect samples for age dating and chemical analysis.
“We were also invited to the Physical Geological Data Center of the CGS in Langfang to log and sample drill core from the Xiarihamu deposit and took part in workshops and seminars with CGS geoscientists,” Dr Beardsmore shared.
More information on the Geological Survey of Western Australia can be found here.