Tasmania partners up with the national government, giving funds that will improve mining operations, exploration, mineral discovery and land use planning.
The Tasmanian Geoscience Initiative has been given $2 million in funding for the next four years. With it, new geological and geophysical data can be collected and interpreted.
Already existing data can also now be re-examined to help de-risk investment decisions and improve sustainable land-use planning throughout the state.
The initiative is supported by up to $3 million through the federal Exploring for the Future program led by Geoscience Australia.
The Tasmanian Geoscience Initiative will remove a lot of guesswork that goes on during the search for minerals. It will also reduce the financial risk of investment by determining how likely a particular commodity may occur in any particular place.
The $2 million funding allows the Tasmanian Government to extend and expand the program to more strategically target mining opportunities. This ensures the state government’s ability to extract the best and most in-demand minerals in the most appropriate locations.
This ability allows the state to bring in more income for its mineral assets. It also allows the income to flow back through royalties and fees into local communities and supports local jobs.
New geological maps are already being developed through the program, helping industry operations and contributing to land use planning decisions and the management of landslide risks.
This funding boost also supports ongoing airborne geophysical surveys in central and eastern Tasmania, the installation of a long-term seismic monitoring network, ongoing 3D geoscience modelling and the collection of geophysical data on the magnetic, radiometric, electrical and gravimetric characteristics of Tasmania.
The first stages of the program are already contributing detailed geotechnical information towards both investment and land use planning decisions across the state.
Tasmanian mining and minerals processing supports more than 5,600 jobs and contributes more than $2 billion a year to the state’s economy through exports alone.
By increasing the value of mining operations through the $2 million funding boost, investments in exploration and regional jobs and communities have also been boosted.