LEME NEWS
December 2008
Closure of CRC LEME
The Cooperative Research Centre for Landscape Environments and Mineral exploration closed on June 30th 2008. Responsibility for research activities passed to individual core party participants.
The LEME website will be maintained by CSIRO Exploration & Mining for a 5 year period, after which it will be removed.
Hard copy publications are no longer available. All publications are available for free electronic download as PDF versions from this website.
November 2008
Book Launch - Regolith Science
Keith Scott and Colin Pain
Dr Neil Williams, CEO of Geoscience Australia, launched this comprehensive reference on the fundamentals of regolith geoscience in Novmber 2008 at Geoscience Australia headquarters in Canberra. The book describes how regolith is developed from parental rocks and emphasises the importance of chemical, physical, water and biological processes in regolith formation.
Written by experts in the field, Regolith Science summaries research carried out over a 13 year period within CRC LEME.
The book is now available from CSIRO Publishing.
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June-July 2008
2008 Winner of Butt-Smith Medal - Dr Nigel Radford
The Medal is awarded every two years - for outstanding and sustained contribution linking regolith science to exploration in Australia. More information
Team and individual awards were presented by Board Chair George Savell and CEO Steve Rogers at Presentation Dinners held in Canberra, Adelaide and Perth at the end of June, to mark the official closure of LEME on 30 June 2008.
LEME Head Office will remain in operation for a few months, to finalise annual reports, legacy publications, financial audit and archiving.
April 2008
THURSDAY 17 APRIL 8.00PM - ABC TV - CATALYST - VIDEO CLIP AVAILABLE
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/promo.htm
This story featured Dr Robert Hough - CRC LEME / CSIRO Exploration and mining.
Gold Nuggets
Surprisingly little is known about gold nuggets. How do they form, where do they come from and do they hold clues to finding more gold?
An enterprising geologist in Western Australia has teamed up with the owner of one of the largest private nugget collections in the world to try and answer these questions. Catalyst journeys through the West Australian goldfields in the quest to find the very origin of nuggets.
March 2008
THURSDAY 6 MARCH - 8.00PM - ABC TV - CATALYST - VIDEO CLIP AVAILABLE
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2008/03/06/2179694.htm
This story featured LEME's Researchers Dr Ravi Anand (CSIRO Exploration and Mining) and Dr Steve Hill (University of Adelaide).
Nature's Little Diggers
There's no doubt that one of Australia 's greatest economic resources is mineral ores. However, finding ore bodies is an expensive and sometimes environmentally destructive process but, as Paul Willis (Catalyst reporter) finds out, scientists are now learning a lot about what lies beneath, by studying what thrives above – trees; termites and even kangaroo poo.
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/promo.htm
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE RESEARCH, CONTACT:
ravi.anand@csiro.au - and / or - steven.hill@adelaide.edu.au
February 2008
Gold-diggers - article by Heather Catchpole
Describes how LEME biogeochemistry is providing signatures to buried mineralisation, with comments from CEO Dr Steve Rogers "Though Australia reaps a rich reward from its rocks, its proportion of global investment in exploration for minerals is dropping ...... between 2005 and 2007 Australia's share of the global expenditure descreased from 19 to 13 per cent"
It features Research from LEME University of Adelaide PhD students Anna Petts (termites) and Nathan Reid (spinifex), supervised by Dr Steve Hill. This is part of the LEME Program 1 Tanami Project. Anna comments "Over the next few years we will see an explosion of papers and results looking at discoveries of previously unknown mineralisation, using plants and animal soil sampling regimes"
The article also summarises the Predictive Geochemistry and biogeochemical exploration research undertaken by Dr Ravi Anand and team (CSIRO Exploration and Mining), as part of the AMIRA Project 778 (LEME Program 2). Sponsored by a number of mining companies, the team are seeking 'definitive results'.
Ravi notes that "Biogeochemistry has been under-utilised in Australia, and is showing promising results. While drilling targets a very small area, checking it with plants and termites allows for mineral prospectivity on a regional scale. That is important because regional exploration is how new discoveries will be made".
January 2008
Science Class with a Difference
LEME CEO and microbiologist Dr Steve Rogers enthuses Year 1 students as part of the CSIRO "Science in Schools" Program (Courtesy of CSIRO staff newsletter "Monday Mail" - 3.12.07)
Science article and book highlight how soil science helped solve a crime.
LEME'S indomitable Rob Fitzpatrick - CSIRO Land and Water - assists the South Australian police in a double murder investigation, which later leads to the establishment of the Centre for Australian Forensic Soil Science (CAFSS)
(Courtesy of CSIRO staff newsletter "Monday Mail" - 3.12.07)
December 2007
MINERALS BRIEF NO. 16 - DECEMBER 2007
October 2007
LEME Legacy products - timetable for publication delivery
September 2007
CRC LEME Minerals Brief - No 15. Regolith Science in Mineral Exploration
August 2007
LEME MINEX SEMINAR 11 August 2007 - very well received by 100+ attendees. Abstract Volume. Some Power Point presentations available on request. Email: crcleme-hq@csiro.au
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