The Heavy Mineral Map of Australia Project: A Novel, Rapid, Automated Quantitative Mineralogy Workflow

The Heavy Mineral Map of Australia (HMMA) is the world’s first project aiming to define acontinental heavy mineral baseline. It utilises a novel sample processing workflow andautomated mineralogy techniques to rapidly generate and analyse mineralogical data from1315 archived samples of catchment outlet sediments collected from 1186 catchmentsacross the Australian continent.Heavy minerals were extracted and concentrated from the 75–425 μm fraction of eachsample via an optimised workflow to accelerate output while maintaining integrity and quality of produced heavy mineral concentrates. Automated mineralogy facilitated rapid and consistent collection of mineral data from each heavy mineral concentrate, and anassociated bespoke mineral library incorporates more than 160 unique mineral phases,including minerals that will be of interest to both researchers and mineral explorers. Apublicly accessible mineral network analysis application has been developed in parallel with the HMMA project to facilitate exploration and interpretation of the resulting >140 million mineral grain identifications dataset.Upon completion in late 2023 the HMMA will provide a heavy mineral baseline acrossapproximately 80% of Australia, with processing of samples and data acquisition undertaken in a standardised and uniform manner enabling easy replication of techniques and both internal and external comparability.