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Monday, 20 March 2017

The University of Western Australia (UWA) is proud to host the Target 2017 Conference, organised by Geoconferences (WA) Inc. The conference will provide an opportunity for geoscientists operating globally in government, industry and academia to discuss the most current and successful strategies for mineral exploration, next month.

The conference is expected to attract up to 250 attendees from the Australian and international mineral exploration community. This includes executives, professionals, researchers and university students, seeking an opportunity to focus on all aspects of minerals exploration and discuss solutions to the challenges faced.

Speakers will include internationally renowned researchers and senior exploration personnel from Australia, Canada, India, and West Africa.

The significance of this summit is underpinned by the major economic changes that have occurred over the past few years.

The Centre for Exploration Targeting UWA’s Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr Crystal LaFlamme, said. “There has been a movement towards higher prices for some metalliferous commodities, with the first tentative indications, late last year. This means there is scope for cautious optimism for those in the industry.”

“However, the economic downturn brought a similar retreat from investment in minerals exploration. This then impacted the long term robustness of the industry, including employment and income for the State.”

The result of this exploration downturn is that fewer metal deposits have been discovered in recent years. If the recent increase in commodity prices evolves into a full-scale commodity boom, there will be few deposits to bring on stream, and potential employment and income will not be realised.

Conference Chair, Dr Nicolas Thebaud, School of Earth Sciences at UWA said, “The metal mining and exploration industries must act now in order to find the next generation of mineral deposits that will sustain development, not only in Western Australia but globally.”

“Even previous mining and exploration booms during the 1990s and 2000s failed to identify as many deposits as earlier booms. Most resources extracted from the Earth today exploit near-surface deposits discovered more than 30 years ago.”

Near surface regions are becoming rapidly depleted of world-class deposits, forcing explorers to expand the search for mineral deposits to deeper, previously unexplored parts of the world’s continents.

Fellow chair for the Conference, Dr Sandra Occhipinti, School of Earth Sciences said, “There needs to be innovation and interaction between academia, government and industry to aid discovery of new deposits under tens to hundreds of metres of barren cover.”

The Target 2017 Conference will be held at The University Club of Western Australia on April 19 – 21 and is an opportunity for industry, government and academic professionals with an interest in maximising returns on exploration investment, to network with peers.

Register for Target 2017 at www.target2017.org.au

Media references


Lauren Humfrey (UWA Faculty of Engineering Mathematical Sciences) (+61 8) 6488 2260

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