Porter GeoConsultancy continued its International Study Tour series of professional development courses by visiting a representative selection of the major uranium deposits and ore styles across Australia, in South Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland.

  This tour was undertaken in association with the Australian Association of Exploration Geophysicists (ASEG), and served as a post conference field trip to the 20th International Geophysical Conference and Exhibition held in Adelaide, SA, in February 2009.

  The full tour commenced in Adelaide, South Australia on the morning of Thursday 26 February and ended in Mt Isa, Queensland on the evening of Tuesday 3 March, 2009.

  Participants were able to take any 2 or more days, up to the full tour, as suited their interests or availability, joining and leaving the tour at appropiate locations along the route.

PHOTO ALBUM  -  See who went and what they saw

The deposits visited were as follows:

South Australia

• Honeymoon - a palaeo-channel uranium deposit hosted by Eocene to Miocene valley fill fluviatile sands developed over the Curnamona Province, ~400 km NE of Adelaide and ~75 km NW of Broken Hill.   The visit involved a detailed technical presentation, followed by an inspection of drill core of the unconsolidated host sequence kept in frozen storage in Adelaide, followed by an air charter to site to inspect the facility in the afternoon ..... Thursday 26 February, 2009.

• Olympic Dam - iron-oxide copper-gold-uranium deposit which is located ~560 km NNW of Adelaide, and is developed over the current eastern margin of the Gawler Craton. The group had continued NW for ~400 km after the Honeymoon visit on their air charter late on the previous afternoon, to overnight at Roxby Downs, ready for an early start at Olympic Dam next morning ..... Friday 27 September, 2009.

Northern Territory

• Expert Classroom Workshop - in Darwin, covering the uranium deposits of Northern Australia, in the Pine Creek Orogen and the Alligator Rivers Uranium Province. On the previous evening the group had taken their charter flight from Roxby Downs back to Adelaide where they overnighted, before an early commercial flight across the continent to Darwin. They arrived by lunch time for the workshop that continued into the evening ..... Saturday 28 February, 2009.

• Expert Field Workshop - in the Rum Jungle district of the western Pine Creek Orogen, including a traverse of the host sequence and visits to a number of the now abandoned open pits ..... Sunday 1 March, 2009.

• Ranger and Jabiluka unconformity related uranium deposits in the Alligator Rivers Uranium Province, ~225 km east of Darwin. These deposits are hosted by interbedded Palaeoproterozoic carbonates, schists, gneisses and cherts that overlie an Archaean basement and are unconformably overlain by the early Mesoproterozoic Kombolgie Sub-group quartz arenites of the northern McArthur Basin ..... Monday 2 March, 2009.

Queensland

• Westmoreland - a series of sandstone hosted stratabound and discordant deposits hosted by little deformed late Palaeo- to early Mesoproterozoic sandstone facies of the southern McArthur Basin, and is influenced by a mafic dyke swarm. The visit began with an early departure for a 900 km air charter flight SE from Darwin, refuelling at Borroloola, for low overpasses of the key prospects, before resuming altitude for the remaining 350 km SSE to Mount Isa. The group arrived in Mount Isa at Noon. They were then given a series of technical presentation on the Westmoreland deposits, and the opportunity to study core from representative drill holes with experienced geologists who were working on the project ..... Tuesday 3 March, 2009.

• Ben Lomond - uranium-molybdenum mineralisation associated with Late Palaeozoic felsic intrusives and volcanics, ~50 km WSW of the city of Townsville. Mineralisation occurs as primary vein fillings of a complex system of steeply dipping fractures, subordinate stockworks and brecciated zones, and as disseminations in the adjacent wallrock. However, circumstances beyond the control of PGC resulted in this visits cancellation at the last minute. Instead, for those who stayed on for the last day, the group visited the now exhausted Mary Kathleen calc-silicate hosted uranium mine 60 km east of Mount Isa ..... Wednesday 4 March.

  The tour was planned, organised, managed and escorted by Mike Porter of Porter GeoConsultancy Pty Limited.   See the photo album, linked above, for more detail.   Image above: Pitchblende veins from the Kintyre unconformity related deposit.