Ian Lambert

Abstract The International Union of Geological Sciences (JUGS) is evaluating whether there are additional geoscientific activities that would be beneficial in helping mitigate the impacts of tsunami. Public concerns about poor decisions and inaction, and advances in computing power and data mining call for new scientific approaches. Three fundamen...

It is important that scientific advice is taken into account in making decisions directed at meeting the needs of the rapidly increasing global population and the aspirations of developing nations, while sustaining Earth systems. However, this has not commonly been the case it is an all too frequent complaint of scientists, that their advice has no...

This short article reflects my experience over many years in provision of the Geoethics symposium at Geoitalia 2011. I was pleased to be invited to provide a brief address at this meeting because it gave me the opportunity to promote the 34th International Geological Congress (IGC) that will to be held in Brisbane, Australia, on August 5-10, 2012,...

Dr Ian Lambert, Geoscience Australia and Secretary General 34th International Geological Congress Australia has comparative advantages in production of mineral commodities compared to most other countries. These stem from its rich and diverse mineral endowment; availability of regional scale (pre-competitive) geoscience information to lower the ris...

This presentation will consider the adequacy of global uranium and thorium resources to meet realistic nuclear power demand scenarios over the next half century. It is presented on behalf of, and based on evaluations by, the Uranium Group - a joint initiative of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency and the International Atomic Energy Agency, of which the...

New developments in web technologies, data transfer standards, computing power and open source processing algorithms are making geological and geospatial data and information much more accessible online and applicable for purposes beyond those they were originally collected for. Geoscientists are progressively taking advantage of these advances to...

Sustainable development involves meeting the needs of human societies while maintaining viable biological and physical Earth systems. The needs include minerals: metals, fuels, industrial and construction materials. There will continue to be considerable demand for virgin mineral resources, even if levels of recycling and efficiency of use are opti...

Australia has a rich uranium endowment. This is considered to reflect the widespread emplacement of uranium-enriched felsic igneous rocks in three main periods of igneous activity. While some uranium deposits appear to have formed during these igneous events, including the giant Olympic Dam deposit, most formed by subsequent low temperature process...

Although extensive geochemical baseline studies have been conducted in many countries, including the UK, Finland, Norway, Poland, USA, Japan, China and New Zealand, they have not been attempted in Australia. Where conducted elsewhere, geochemical baseline surveys have been used to (1) help determine the natural state of the environment, (2) contrib...

Australia's landscapes are ancient and deeply weathered, reflecting the continent's geological stability. The term regolith is used to describe the layer of soil, weathered materials and transported sediments that occurs above fresh bedrock. The regolith commonly exceeds a hundred metres thick in low relief country. The regolith is now known to be...

This paper discusses Australia's uranium resources with reference to the history of exploration and discovery, magnitude of the resources, main styles of mineralisation, ownership of resources, and significant recent developments which will lead to increases in production. Australia has the world's largest resources of low cost uranium: 629 000 ton...

Australia is particularly well endowed with large stratiform sediment-hosted Zn-Pb-Ag deposits of Middle Proterozoic age, the main examples being Broken Hill,Mount Isa, Hilton, McArthur River and Century. These deposits formed in intracratonic rifts during a remarkably brief mineralizing event around 1690–1670Ma, and their genesis appears to have b...

First published in 1992, The Proterozoic Biosphere was the first major study of the paleobiology of the Proterozoic Earth. It is a multidisciplinary work dealing with the evolution of the Earth, the environment and life during the forty percent of Earth's history that extends from the middle of the Precambrian eon (2500 Ma) to the beginning of the...

First published in 1992, The Proterozoic Biosphere was the first major study of the paleobiology of the Proterozoic Earth. It is a multidisciplinary work dealing with the evolution of the Earth, the environment and life during the forty percent of Earth's history that extends from the middle of the Precambrian eon (2500 Ma) to the beginning of the...

First published in 1992, The Proterozoic Biosphere was the first major study of the paleobiology of the Proterozoic Earth. It is a multidisciplinary work dealing with the evolution of the Earth, the environment and life during the forty percent of Earth's history that extends from the middle of the Precambrian eon (2500 Ma) to the beginning of the...

Zinc mineralization in Devonian carbonates of the Lennard Shelf, northern Canning Basin is similar in many respects to that of the Mississippi Valley-type including estimated minimum temperatures of sulphide precipitation between 70 and 110°C. Apparent apatite fission track ages for Precambrian granitic basement and for detrital apatites in Devonia...

Numerous Pb-Zn deposits formed during the Proterozoic, in contrast with the situation in the Archean. The largest examples, which are reviewed here, are McArthur, Mount Isa-Hilton, Sullivan, Gamsberg, and Broken Hill. These huge stratiform deposits occur well above the bases of thick, predominantly sedimentary sequences which accumulated in major e...

Australia is well endowed with large, high-grade, stratiform Pb-Zn-Ag ore bodies: Broken Hill, Mount Isa, Hilton and McArthur. Such deposits were long regarded as having formed by intricate hydrothermal replacement of “favourable” strata. Almost 30 years ago, Professor Ramdohr concluded this was not the case at Broken Hill and, since then, it has b...

The volcanogenic Woodlawn Cu‐Pb‐Zn sulphide mineralization occurs within a low‐grade metamorphosed sequence of Middle to Upper Silurian felsic volcanics and fine‐grained sedimentary rocks. Studies on a total of 234 rock samples from diamond drill holes have delineated zones of hydrothermally altered rocks extending more than ∼500 m laterally from t...

The Woodlawn ore body, which is being developed by Jododex Australia, is near Tarago, about 45 km northeast of Canberra. It consists of massive Cu?Pb?Zn sulphide lenses, plus stringer and disseminated mineralization.

Organic carbon and inorganic carbonate contents previously reported for ore and pyritic shale country rocks from the McArthur area have been found to be in error because of saturation of the sulphur oxides trap during combustion of the samples. Corrected organic carbon values do not show good correlations with iron, zinc, lead, or sulphur contents.

Largely stratiform Kuroko deposits, stockwork ores and fissure-filling veins are widespread in the so-called Green Tuff basins of Tertiary age in Japan. They are the youngest, least modified examples known of base metal sulfide deposits associated with felsic lavas and pyroclastics, and familiarization with their features should lead to a more deta...

Concentrations of iron sulphide minerals in sediments within and adjacent to a small intertidal thermal pool near Talasea township are forming and being modified under a wide range of exhalative-sedimentary conditions. A geochemical, mineralogical and bacteriological investigation of these iron sulphides has defined the major reactions leading to t...

Melting relations of a finely ground, crystalline tonalite with excess water have been studied at pressures between 10 kbar and 30 kbar, to a maximum temperature of 850° C, and these data have been combined with previously published results at lower pressures and higher temperatures. The rock mineralogy of plagioclase, quartz, orthoclase, biotite,...

The McArthur ZnPbAg deposit occurs within a belt of Middle Proterozoic sediments which extends discontinuously from the northwest of Queensland to the north of the Northern Territory. The similar Mount Isa and Hilton deposits, as well as many smaller orebodies, occur in the same belt, and there is every reason to believe that the full mineral pot...

Finely-banded, stratiform, metal sulphide deposits in carbonaceous shales contain very significant proportions of the world's resources of lead, zinc and copper. The perfect conformability of the sulphide bands suggests that they formed syngenetically.However, there are also some sulphide minerals in these ores which have textures and structures th...

The physico-chemical limits of bacterial sulfate reduction have been examined and it is concluded that there are few geochemical factors which, by themselves, would prevent the process from occurring in sedimentary environments. Modern biochemical studies on the evolution of organisms suggest that sulfate-reduc-ing bacteria may have developed in th...

Crystalline, fine-grained, high-alumina olivine tholeiite with excess water was reacted in sealed platinum capsules in piston-cylinder apparatus between 10 and 35 kbar pressure. Runs were planned to determine the curve for the beginning of melting, but combining these with published results at lower pressures permitted delineation of the major feat...

Geochemical investigations have been carried out in the volcano-exhalative-sedi-mentary environment at Matupi Harbor, New Britain, T.P.N.G., in an attempt to elucidate the potential of such environments for stratiform ore formation. Matupi Harbor is a sheltered basin with hot, acid springs entering at its eastern and northern shores. These springs...

Experimental phase diagrams for the systems gabbro-water and peridotite-water indicate that, if there is any water in the upper mantle, then traces of hydrous interstitial silicate magma will be produced at depths corresponding to the beginning of the low-velocity zone. This explanation for the zone is more satisfactory than others proposed.

Banded sulphide ores of the McArthur River type are characterized by large numbers of conformable, monomineralic sulphide bands. These appear to have formed prior to consolidation of the host sediments. This paper describes a series of laboratory experiments designed to test the possibility that the bands could have been generated by the migration...

It is possible that there are minor amounts of water in the upper mantle. This water could significantly lower melting temperatures and may give rise to melts of different composition to those formed by melting under anhydrous conditions.This paper summarizes our experimental study of the influence of water on phase relations in natural gabbro and...

Synthetic sanidine and a sanidine-natural quartz mixture were reacted with 30 to 40 percent water and the melting relations were determined to 18.5 kb. The divariant melting intervals located for each sample, along with the results of previous studies in the system, provided good estimates of the position of the univariant curves for the two reacti...

Synthetic sanidine with composition Or_(95)Ab_5 was crystallized from gel, and a portion was mixed with 15 wt percent natural quartz. The sanidine and sanidine-quartz mixture were reacted with 30 to 40 wt percent water in sealed platinum capsules, using piston-cylinder apparatus. The melting relationships for these two crystalline mixtures, in the...

Medium to high pressure granulite facies rocks are relatively uncommon at the earth's surface and are probably formed at considerable depth in the continental crust. Low pressure granulite facies rocks are rather common in shield regions and frequently grade into upper amphibolite facies rocks. Medium to high pressure granulite terranes have less ‘...

Radioactive element abundances in two crustal sections are estimated from surface heat flow, radioactive element abundances at the surface and in medium to high pressure granulite facies rocks, crustal thickness, and assumptions of heat flow from the mantle. The abundances are 4.5 p.p.m. Th, 0.7 (or 1.1) p.p.m. U, 1.5% K in the Archaean shield of s...

THERE have been many discussions, but few experiments, related to the occurrence and stability of hornblende in the upper mantle1–4. We have obtained evidence relating to hornblende stability in experiments which extend the phase relationships for calc–alkaline rock series (gabbro–tonalite–granite) to upper mantle pressures, in the presence of exce...

A borehole for heat flow measurement has been drilled in a region of high radioactivity granitic rocks in the Archaean shield of Western Australia. Most previous shield heat flow determinations have been in low radioactivity basic and ultrabasic rocks which constitute less than 20% of the shield surface rocks. The heat flow of 1.23 μcal/cm2sec meas...

Granulite faeies rocks exposed at the earth's surface may not be representative of the lowermost parts of the continental crust, but they do provide samples of the deepest levels made available in any areal extent at the surface. A concentration-depth relation for elements can thus be defined by statistically comparing their abundances in granulite...

Pressures up to 40 kb at temperatures of 950øC and 1100øC have been applied to a glass of granitic composition (adamellite). The experiments at 950øC demonstrate that the adamellite crystallizes to quartzu plagioclasealkali feldsparorthopyroxene _ clinopyroxene at pressures less than 13% kb, but at higher pressures garnet and clinopyroxene form at...

A northwest?trending, sinistral wrench fault having a horizontal component of movement of approximately seven miles, transects the Berridale Batholith of the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales. The displacement has been determined by matching the displaced segments of two granite intrusions and their associated contact aureoles. The main horizontal...