MEGWA November 2020

MEGWA November 2020


THANKS TO OUR 2020 SPONSOR


Date & Time

Wednesday 18 November 2020
5.30pm for drinks

finger food sponsored by LABWEST

6.00pm presentation

**Australian Western Standard Time (AWST)


Venue

Irish Club
61 Townshend Rd
Subiaco, Western Australia


UltraFine+, what’s all the fuss?

Presenter: Dr Ryan Noble, CSIRO


Abstract

The exploration soil sampling and analytical approach has not changed significantly over the past 30 years: that is, digest a dry-sieved, perhaps milled, soil and analyse the solution for elemental concentrations. Look at your key pathfinder elements, rinse and repeat at the next tenement package. Industry needs to explore differently and that is the paradigm shift the CSIRO research team is driving by fundamentally changing the exploration soil analysis approach.

In transported cover, our biggest exploration challenge, the mobile element signature is contained in the smallest size fractions, so the UltraFine+ method was developed to optimise this fraction in a new analytical workflow. The new approach separates the <2 µm “ultrafine” soil fractions for multielement analysis along with other, commonly not utilised physico-chemical parameters including spectral mineralogy, pH, EC and particle size. This talk will give the background science, industry examples and an indication of what’s to come with data integration and machine learning to achieve the paradigm shift. Hype, hyperbole or something that is making a change in the industry? Come along, judge for yourself and see what’s the fuss with UltraFine+.


Bio

Ryan is a Principal Research Scientist and the Group Leader of Predictive Mineral Systems Science with CSIRO. He has a BSc and MSc in Soil Science from the University of Tennessee and a PhD in Applied Geology from Curtin University. Following his PhD, Ryan joined CSIRO 15 years ago and has worked on numerous regolith and groundwater geochemistry projects related to gold, base metal, Ni and U mineral exploration. Ryan is the Past-President and a Fellow of the Association of Applied Geochemists. He is a Board member of the Australian Geoscience Council and Earth Science Western Australia.