Pine Creek Orogen field workshop.   A full day field workshop was conducted studying the geological setting and mineralisation of the Pine Creek Orogen.   The bulk of the workshop was in the Rum Jungle Uranium Field in the western part of the Orogen, led by local expert John Earthrowl (blue overalls, right image) who has had decades of experience and knows the district intimately.   The best exposures of the host succession/equivalents to the major uranium deposits of the Orogen are found in the workings and near the more numerous roads of the Rum Jungle Uranium Field, where the sequence is less heavily metamorphosed than the rocks the group would see next day in the Ranger area in the eastern part of the Orogen.   Exposures were studied from the Archaean basement contact, through the basal Palaeoproterozoic coarse clastics, and the overlying carbonaceous shales and carbonates and unconformably succeeding Mesoproterozoic sandstones elsewhere in the basin.   The group was also briefed on the district geology and located at all times using sections and plans (lower centre image).
Photographs by Mike Porter.