Eastern Resources Corridor Airborne Electromagnetic Interpretation Data Package

This data package contains interpretations of airborne electromagnetic (AEM) conductivity sections in the Exploring for the Future (EFTF) program’s Eastern Resources Corridor (ERC) study area, in south eastern Australia. Conductivity sections from 3 AEM surveys were interpreted to provide a continuous interpretation across the study area – the EFTF AusAEM ERC (Ley-Cooper, 2021), the Frome Embayment TEMPEST (Costelloe et al., 2012) and the MinEx CRC Mundi (Brodie, 2021) AEM surveys. Selected lines from the Frome Embayment TEMPEST and MinEx CRC Mundi surveys were chosen for interpretation to align with the 20&nbsp;km line-spaced EFTF AusAEM ERC survey (Figure 1).
The aim of this study was to interpret the AEM conductivity sections to develop a regional understanding of the near-surface stratigraphy and structural architecture. To ensure that the interpretations took into account the local geological features, the AEM conductivity sections were integrated and interpreted with other geological and geophysical datasets, such as boreholes, potential fields, surface and basement geology maps, and seismic interpretations. This approach provides a near-surface fundamental regional geological framework to support more detailed investigations. 
This study interpreted between the ground surface and 500&nbsp;m depth along almost 30,000 line kilometres of nominally 20&nbsp;km line-spaced AEM conductivity sections, across an area of approximately 550,000&nbsp;km2. These interpretations delineate the geo-electrical features that correspond to major chronostratigraphic boundaries, and capture detailed stratigraphic information associated with these boundaries. These interpretations produced approximately 170,000 depth estimate points or approximately 9,100 3D line segments, each attributed with high-quality geometric, stratigraphic, and ancillary data. The depth estimate points are formatted for compliance with Geoscience Australia’s (GA) Estimates of Geological and Geophysical Surfaces (EGGS) database, the national repository for standardised depth estimate points. 
Results from these interpretations provided support to stratigraphic drillhole targeting, as part of the Delamerian Margins NSW National Drilling Initiative campaign, a collaboration between GA’s EFTF program, the MinEx CRC National Drilling Initiative and the Geological Survey of New South Wales. The interpretations have applications in a wide range of disciplines, such as mineral, energy and groundwater resource exploration, environmental management, subsurface mapping, tectonic evolution studies, and cover thickness, prospectivity, and economic modelling. It is anticipated that these interpretations will benefit government, industry and academia with interest in the geology of the ERC region.

Tags: ARF, Adelaide Fold Belt, Airborne electromagnetics, AusAEM, Australia's Resources Framework, Basins, Cartography and digital mapping, Cenozoic, Cover thickness, DCD, Darling-Curnamona-Delamerian, Delamerian Orogen, Depth to basement, EFTF – Exploring for the Future, ERC, Earth Sciences, Earth system sciences, Eastern Resources Corridor, Electrical and electromagnetic methods in geophysics, Energy, Geomorphology and earth surface processes, Geophysical interpretation, Geophysics, Geoscience data visualisation, Geospatial information systems and geospatial data modelling, Groundwater, Groundwater hydrology, Lachlan Orogen, Lake Eyre Basin, Mesoproterozoic, Mesozoic, Minerals, Murray Basin, Natural hazards, Neoproterozoic, New South Wales, Otway Basin, Paleoproterozoic, Paleozoic, Published_External, Queensland, Regolith and landscape evolution, Resource geoscience, Sedimentology, South Australia, Stratigraphy (incl. biostratigraphy, Structural geology and tectonics, Thomson Orogen, Victoria, sequence stratigraphy and basin analysis)
Organization: Geoscience Australia Data