Preliminary Report on review of Projects
February 2003 - Dennis Gee
TABLES
- Table
1 "Official" List of LEME projects, by Program
- Table 2 Current Core
Minerals Projects, by Themes (RTF)
- Table 3 Proforma for
Model Portfolio (RTF)
INTRODUCTION
At the August 2002 LEME Board meeting it was resolved that “the
portfolio of projects be approved and that funding for the projects
be endorsed for the current financial year only”. It was
further resolved “that the projects be reviewed by the new
CEO and be subject to further discussion by executives and the Board”
at its first meeting in 2003.
The overall objective of the review is to examine whether the portfolio
of projects aligns with the Strategic Plan and whether there is
sufficient focus of individual projects onto the major research
themes. The implication is that steps may be taken to re-scope,
merge, close off existing projects or adopt new projects, in order
to make for more cohesive research themes.
The review process took the form of a travelling panel consisting
of Dennis Gee, Paul Wilkes and the four research Program Leaders
Ravi Anand, Ken Lawrie, Colin Pain and Keith Scott, augmented by
locally based executives at each node. This provided a strong focus
on each project that was more effective and cheaper than having
plenary workshops. The opportunity was taken to discuss programming
with senior executives of core parties at each node. Comments from
these discussions are included in the report. The reviews finished
on 28 February 2003.
In this review there was a clear emphasis on mineral and regolith
projects. Projects in Program 4 are either just commencing, or are
at the generative stage, and have been formulated so as to align
with the Strategic Plan. Consequently they were not reviewed in
this process.
The reviews took the form of across-the-table discussions between
the Project Leader (and any one else that was relevant) and the
panel, and addressed:
- original objectives and scope
- work done to date
- significant results to date
- have outputs and milestones been achieved
- current scientific status
- budget and personnel status
- work required to complete
- contribution to strategic intent
- suggestions for new (or related) projects
STRATEGIC INTENT
As projects were assessed against the Strategic Plan, it is appropriate
to give a brief restatement of the fundamentals of that plan, which
is now our guiding document.
LEME conducts research in the architecture and processes of the
regolith in order to make mineral exploration more effective especially
in areas of transported cover, and to apply regolith science in
addressing problems and solutions in natural resource management,
with special emphasis in salinity remediation.
It does this in a framework of seven themes:
- Understanding regolith processes
- Models of regolith landscape evolution
- Acid-sulphate soils
- Regional exploration studies
- Making geochemistry more effective
- Geophysical mapping and modelling in regolith terrains
- Salinity systems in regolith and groundwater
- Regolith geoscience and urban Australia
- Environmental geochemistry and the regolith
This review addressed Themes 1 to 7, and did not address the strategic
question of balance between the two main streams of mineral exploration
and environment. Nor does this review address the question of program
structure. The current program structure is prescribed by the Commonwealth
Agreement, however it does not present the ideal framework for research.
CURRENT PORTFOLIO OF LEME RESEARCH PROJECTS
LEME currently has 31 formally adopted research projects in Programs
1, 2 and 3. These are shown in the “official” list
in Table 1. However many of these are variously ongoing, concluding,
inoperative, leaving on 16 currently active research projects.
Ongoing Reporting Projects
There are five ongoing reporting projects:
- Open file reports,
- Regolith landscape evolution volume,
- 3-D mapping volume,
- Atlases and manuals,
- Regolith expressions of ore systems
Some of these are hangovers from LEME1 and have passed their scheduled
completion dates. However the manuals are all well advanced. It
is essential that these projects be brought to completion, as the
products will be widely recognised as LEME “showcases”.
Steps have been taken to progressively put some material on the
LEME Website - for example - finished case studies of the “Regolith
Expressions of Australian Ore Systems”.
Inoperative Projects
Three projects are inoperative for various reasons:
- Northern Australian Landscape Study
- Striker Resources
- Perth cities project
These should be abandoned or re-scoped where necessary. There are
no budgeted operating costs for these projects.
Terminating Projects
A further nine projects are due for completion at the end of f/y
2003:
- Harris Greenstone
- South Australian regolith
- Regional seepage geochemistry
- AEM Gawler Craton
- Pilbara manganese
- Yilgarn laterite geochemistry
- Mineral Hill regolith profiles
- Pacrim2 AIRSAR
- Dominion Challenger
Most of these projects have been relevant to our research priorities,
and have generated new techniques or new information. Some projects
have raised new questions, and there are requests from Project Leaders
to extend them to their logical conclusions. However, the Executive
believes it is important that all these projects be closed on schedule,
with the best available nominated deliverables. If there are any
outstanding research matters they can be incorporated into newly
scoped projects.
Steps are being taken to quantify the size of unspent operating
funds at the conclusion of these projects. Many of these terminating
projects will provide good material for LEME News.
Currently Active Projects
This leaves 15 active core projects in Programs1, 2 and 3, as summarised
in Table 2. Thirteen of these are minerals oriented.
Two AMIRA proposals are in negotiation - hydrothermal alteration
signatures in the regolith, and formation of geochemical anomalies
in transported regolith.
COMMENTS ON CORE PORTFOLIO OF MINERAL PROJECTS
The current core portfolio of 13 projects is a mixture of single-focus
technology-development projects and broad multi-disciplinary multi-participant
projects. Overall the review shows that the portfolio does not address
adequately the adopted research themes.
Three of our core participants (GA, PIRSA NSWDMR), who provide
large sums of operating funding by way of real cash or “in-kind
services”, emphasise they prefer a multidisciplinary systems
approach with a regional focus, seeking to enhance the mineral prospectivity
of mineral regions. This does not imply they require LEME to undertake
regional studies, but they see it as a mechanism for focussing multiple
disciplines on a strategically important area.
The multi-disciplinary multi-party projects, (mega projects), have
strong elements of data gathering, technique development and regional
prospectivity enhancement, much of which is specifically required
by PIRSA and NSW DMR as part of their mandate. These projects are
developing sound terrain evaluation techniques, but at this stage
there is no emerging scientific break-throughs in exploration geochemistry.
Some of the regionally oriented projects carry a risk of drifting
into a service mode. For example Western NSW Regolith entails the
production of up to 20 standard scale (1:25k) regolith landform
maps. All parties agree that LEME should not be in the business
of standard-series production, and that the regolith-landform mapping
component should be considered, either a demonstration project to
be taken up by the appropriate agency if required, or a framework
for other site studies.
The geophysical projects can all be described as technique-development
in nature, and are being done outside the mainstream of LEME research.
Ideally such projects should be brought into the fold of mega-projects,
so that software and equipment development can be done on sites
studied by other LEME projects. This will enable comparative methods
to be evaluated on standardised sites. If this is not possible,
then at least more regolith geology needs to be injected into these
developmental projects. There is not sufficient liaison between
the researchers in the four geophysical projects.
The two geochronology projects have potential to make outstanding
advances in the dating of regolith processes, particularly in the
time period in which ferricrete, silcrete and calcrete formed (50
- 2Ma). This research will therefore clearly make an impact on the
challenge of 4-D regolith architecture. There is good liaison between
Pillans (1.1) and Nemchin (1.8). Ideally the new techniques should
be developed using material from areas subject to other facets of
regolith studies.
Whereas some progress is being made in the 2-D rapid mapping of
regolith terrains, and logging techniques, we are still some well
short of developing rapid and economic methods for 3-D mapping on
regions the size of mineral fields and major catchments. Drilling
still remains essential for 3-D mapping. In short, we are still
not integrating our geophysics and mapping.
There are only a few projects specifically directed to our major
mineral exploration challenge of LEME2 - that of making geochemistry
work through transported regolith. As yet there is no strong focus
on this core area of business. Some aspects of Girilambone address
transported regimes. The Mineral Hosts project is delivering intriguing
and useful information on the partition of elements in weathering
mineral phases. The proposed AMIRA P778 will go some way to redressing
this.
In terms of the full spectrum of regolith geoscience, there is
surprisingly no core project on gold in the Yilgarn. At least one
major project needs to be developed here, on the transported regimes
that have received little attention so far.
Another major gap in the current portfolio is the absence of research
into the theoretical and experimental controls of chemical process
in the regolith, such as gold and metal geochemistry in saline groundwater,
predictive models involving water-regolith reactions, and the role
of biota.
At the conclusion of the terminating projects, the only industry
projects will be AMIRA 407b and P618. The latter, addressing isotopic
signatures of buried base mental deposits in transported regolith,
is a well conceived project, but at the ulta-low levels of detection
required for this fingerprinting method, the development is running
into technical difficulties due to contamination from scrap metals
in the environment. Two other AMIRA projects P778 and P779 are in
circulation with initial meetings scheduled for May 2003.
MANAGEMENT CONSIDERATIONS
Mega-projects
It may be argued that there are too many small projects in the
LEME portfolio, however this is not necessarily an impediment to
focussed research. In fact from the management viewpoint, it is
best to have small projects as accounting entities, especially if
they are scattered in different organisations, and field regions.
The relevant question is whether small projects are contributing
effectively to larger multi-disciplinary projects. In fact if we
move to mega-projects with individual modular projects, then those
modules may still need to be called projects, and have their own
budgets.
Budgeting and cost controls
The review has highlighted gross underspending of operating costs
relative to the approved budget, as shown for the 13 core projects
in Table 2. This arises for two reasons. Firstly project leaders
have not been through a realistic and thoughtful cost estimation
process in the budget preparation phase, but seem to have simply
“plucked numbers out of the air”. Secondly the problem
is exacerbated by continuing delays in submitting and processing
invoices. However the accrual register is beginning to track the
commitments.
There are likely to be large surpluses at the end of this F/Y,
which can be redeployed into continuing, re-scoped or new projects.
A priority task for April 2003 is for Program and Project Leaders
to undertake a rigorous re-forecasting of cost for the remainder
of the FY02/03, for both the terminating and continuing projects.
In-kind staff
In the staff schedules of the current budget, there is the equivalent
of 7.25 FTEs in under-utilised in-kind staff, mostly located at
CSIRO, ANU and AU. These are tucked away in the project called program
costs (better called project generation?). When the terminating
projects are finished, a further 3.15 FTS will be freed up, allowing
10.4 FTEs to be deployed on new or continuing projects.
CORE PARTY INTERESTS
CSIRO
CSIRO is the core strength of LEME in terms of analytical facility
and in-kind contribution, and needs to keep these assets fully occupied.
LEME will need to continue with themes such as geochemical anomaly
formation, 3-D architecture and visualisation, and geochemical datasets.
Exploration and Mining Division have always pursued a multi-disciplinary
approach to projects wherever possible, and has strong liaisons
with industry, and has preferentially sought external funding. CEM
division of CSIRO, as well as LEME need to address the dwindling
availability of exploration industry funds. Also CSIRO still needs
to address the question of the relationship of the EM and LW divisions
within LEME.
Curtin University
Curtin interests lie in geophysics, isotope geology, sedimentology
and regolith geology. Like the other universities, virtually all
of the in-kind and cash-funded staff commitments to LEME are taken
up by supervision of Honours and PhD students. Whereas this makes
a strong contribution to regolith science, it does isolate these
staff from operational roles in multi-party projects.
PIRSA
PIRSA gave notice that following an internal strategic planning
workshop and a Gawler Craton workshop with GA and AU, their mineral
prospectivity enhancement program project (including all regolith
projects) would focus on the Central Gawler Craton, and the Curnamona
Craton. A $4m AEM survey is being planned by GA over the Central
Gawler project area, and the regolith program would use some or
all of the following strategies to help develop an effective exploration
strategy, primarily for gold:
- map contemporary landscape forms and processes
- map the 3-D volume of the regolith
- reconstruct landscape history
- model past and present physical dispersion processes
- prioritising and ranking anomalies- especially in calcrete
- map distribution of metals and major ion solutes within 3-D
regolith
- map groundwater chemistry and flow regimes
- model past and present dispersion processes.
It is uncertain whether $4m is available for an AEM survey over
the central Gawler.
PIRSA plans significant expenditures of up to 7.5FTEs, plus “operational
cash in kind” to the total value of more that $1m. They would
like LEME to join in these projects. GA will look to incorporating
a baseline geochemical survey in priority areas in SA.]
Adelaide University
Adelaide has strength in geophysical technology development - mainly
software - and wish this continue. Two new LEME cash-funded positions
are filled but currently are under deployed. There is enthusiasm
in Adelaide for Sr isotope studies on calcrete (Barovich), interpretation
of airborne gravity (John Joseph), and regolith mapping (Steve Hill)
A strong recurring theme in South Australia is the need for a gold
in calcrete project, looking at formation of pedogenic and groundwater
calcrete, how gold travels through and is trapped in calcrete, the
form of gold in mineral sites, and the role of biota.
Geoscience Australia
In regard to mineral programs, GA, who operate in the States/Territories
under the National Geoscience Agreement, requires integrated “systems”
projects of large impact involving multiple disciplines and multiple
parties. Under these conditions GA would link all their regolith
programs with LEME.
ANU
ANU is keen to participate in multi-disciplinary multi-party studies,
and can contribute their specialist expertise in the three areas:
- Gold (and Cu-Zn) geochemistry in groundwater and hypersaline
brines, how gold exists in the solid phase in regolith, adsorption
of gold by organic matter, up-ward physical transport of gold,
and gold uptake in plants (Bear McPhail).
- Continental scale history of aridity, to give a broad context
to regolith dynamics over the period from Cretaceous to Holocene
- in effect a “process” sequel to P1.11. (John Chappelle)
- Geochronological dating - ongoing project (Brad Pillans)
NSW DMR
NSW DMR has an ongoing commitment to LEME, and wish to have the
Broken Hill and Girilambone projects brought to their scheduled
finish. They believe that future work should concentrate on depositional
areas of regolith, and this emphasis is driven by a northward move
from Girilambone to buried terrains around Bourke. They regard regolith-landform
maps as experimental prototypes (“suck and see”),
and one of many layers in the GIS spatial database, of equal standing
to classical surface geology maps. These products need to receive
the full assessment by mineral explorers and land managers.
TOWARD COHESIVE AND FOCUSSED RESEARCH
Criteria for project adoption
The review panel felt a strong sentiment for a set of criteria
for the adoption of new projects, so that new proposals must:
- relate to regolith
- be a multi-agency and multi-disciplinary project, or a single-focus
modular project that contributes to such a thematic project.
- go through a review and endorsement process by the Executive
- should advance regolith science, or contribute solutions to
land management problems
Regionally clustered projects
A successful and productive way to focus multi-disciplinary and
multi-party research in Programs1 and 2 is to develop regionally
based thematic projects, where specific modules of specialist research
can be plugged into regional frameworks which provide clusters of
mineralised sites for detailed study. Thus all the research themes
could be brought to bear on the single region. Individual project
within a cluster could transgress themes.
Examples of regions include Central Gawler Gold Province, Curnamona
Craton, Yandal Belt, Mt Keith Belt.
In this model individual modules would rate as single projects
in the accounting and management sense. Each one of these modular
projects could have their own Project Leader, but the overall cluster
project will require a coordinator, who could be a Program Leader.
Some individual projects will apply to several regional clusters
– for example Objective Logging, Mineral Hosts and Regolith
Dating. Similarly, other projects of a developmental nature will
not fit neatly into a regional cluster, but would stand alone as
an entity.
A skeletal outline of future projects under the cluster model is
shown in Table 3. Obviously this will need further discussion by
Executive, and be filled in during the FY03/04 Budget preparation
process.
PROJECT RECASTING IN THE 2003/04 BUDGET
As noted above nine projects with attached unspent operating costs
will finish this financial year. These require rigorous and realistic
forecasting.
Of the 13 on-going projects in Table 2, most will endure in some
form through to 2003/04. Following the strategic review by PIRSA,
some projects are likely to be re-scoped. For example P1.4 (SA Sediments)
probably will carved divided in to separate Central Gawler and Olary
Curnamona projects.
In addition there will be new projects commencing in FY 03/04.
It is therefore appropriate to close of the FY02/03 Budget for
all projects, without any carry-overs, and prepare new operating
budgets and work programs as part of the FY03/04 budget process.
Implicit in this action is that work for ongoing projects identified
in Table 2 will continue uninterrupted, because adequate funding
can be assured.
This review highlights a need to move toward a system of monthly
forecasting of operating budgets.
OTHER MATTERS
This review has raised a number of issues relating to Student scholarships,
education and training, communication, and promotion. It is intended
to review these aspects separately.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
- Ongoing reporting projects (manuals) are well behind schedule,
but must be finished. Some Web release is happening.
- Nine projects scheduled to finish this F/Y should actually finish,
and outstanding work and unspent funds be rolled into other projects.
- There are only 15 active minerals projects, which will make
project re-scoping relatively easy
- As yet there is insufficient focus on the strategic imperative
of making geochemistry work through transported regolith.
- There is little current work on processes in the regolith (hydrochemical,
isotope fingerprinting) despite our excellent capability.
- There is no major gold project in Western Australia
- The definition of a project should be an accounting entity.
- There is enormous enthusiasm for multi-disciplinary multi-party
mega-projects.
- There is no managerial problem with having a large number of
single projects but ideally they should bolt on to mega-projects.
- LEME should resist technical service work, or standard-series
production projects.
- Technology development projects, should where possible, slot
into mega-projects.
- The best way to develop mega-projects is by clustering on a
regional focus. This is a requirement of our survey-oriented participants.
- All projects (except one) are grossly underspent in terms of
operating costs, and surpluses are likely from terminating and
on-going projects. Quantum??
- By F/Y end there will be 10.4 FTEs freed up.
- At year end, the F/Y 02/03 budget should be closed, and new
properly costed budgets prepared for all projects.
- Active steps are now being taken to scope new projects that
align with the Strategic Plan. These will fill deficiencies in
the portfolio, and provide the platform for new mega-projects.
- A proforma for a model portfolio is submitted - this requires
more work by Program Leaders
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