2016: Year in review

2016 was a successful year for the Structure Tectonics Team. Dr Jonathan Pownall started his research on “Tectonic derivers of extreme metamorphism in eastern Indonesia” in association with his ARC-DECRA grant. Oleg Koudashev submitted his thesis “Large scale structure and geochronology of porphyry and epithermal deposits along the northern Australian continental lithosphere”. Sima Mousavi joined the group as a research assistant, and recently completed her PhD in seismology at University of Leipzig. Undergraduate students Fangqin Chen, Ruben Creighton, Jack Muston and Julien Langley started as research interns.

In 2016, research conducted by the Structure Tectonics Team continued to focus on the link between tectonics and mineralisation, mostly in collaboration with Agincourt Resources, AngloGold Ashanti, Vale and Chinova Resources. The research incorporated fieldwork, 4D Tectonic Reconstruction as well as geochronology using SHRIMP U–Pb analyses conducted by Dr Richard Armstrong, and 40Ar/39Ar analyses conducted by Dr Marnie Forster, with technical assistance from Davood Vasegh.

External collaboration with industry and academy was boosted in 2016 with several visits to and by the group. Dr Xiao Liang from China University of Geosciences, Beijing spent a few months as a Visiting Fellow with our group. Mr Paul Donchak and Mr Laurie Hutton from the Geological Survey of Queensland, and Ms Jo Wheeler from Geological survey of the Northern Territory also visited the group in association with collaborative projects in the argon lab with Dr Forster. The group also hosted Mr David Burt from Vale Indonesia TBK who visited Prof. Lister as part of a collaborative Linkage project. Prof. Lister visited Agincourt Resources in Sumatra and AngloGold Ashanti in Perth with collaborative research on a Linkage Project.

Following its official opening in 2015, the Argus VI mass spectrometer has been fully-operative in 2016 with more than 100 samples being measured, removing the queue for lab results. The argon lab was visited several times as part of school tours for external visitors including FrogTech and the panel of academics during the school review.

The group presented cutting-edge research at several conferences in 2016 such as EGU (Vienna), AESC (Adelaide), 35th International Geological Congress (Cape Town), and TANG3O (Perth).