AMIRA: Major New Government Grant

MAJOR NEW GOVERNMENT GRANT

AMIRA is pleased to announce a significant development in the P934A West Africa Exploration Initiative (WAXI) that will extend the scope of the project and aims to enhance exploration in both West Africa and Australia.

On Monday 25 October the Australian Federal Minister of Industry, Science and Research, Senator Kim Carr, announced that the Australian Research Council had awarded a Linkage grant of AU$1.62 million to P934A over 3 years.

The grant is specifically for a program of work focusing on the “Four Dimensional Lithospheric Evolution and Controls on Mineral System Distribution in Neoarchean to Paleoproterozoic Terranes” which will undertake a comparative study of the Leo-Man Shield in West Africa, the Yilgarn Block and the North Australian Craton in Australia. The project will provide a better understanding of the evolution, architecture and preservation of continents and their links to mineral deposits between 2.7 and 1.8 billion years ago (a period in Earth history that is highly endowed with mineral deposits and reflects a very important transition in the evolution of our planet and its biosphere-hydrosphere-atmosphere). By producing and integrating new high quality geophysical and geochemical data and making a major contribution to training students and researchers, the project aims to develop a superior model to help understand Earth’s evolution and target areas of high prospectivity for important mineral deposits. This work will build on the many years of research activity in the Yilgarn, much of which was carried out through AMIRA projects, combined with the new work in West Africa.

This grant is in addition to funding of US$443,347 from AusAid specifically targeting training and capacity building in West Africa. In addition, eleven companies are contributing over US$2.2M over three years to WAXI Stage 2 through AMIRA. The following organisations have all joined the project as sponsors-in-kind: the Centre de Recherches Géologiques et Minières – Niger; Department of Mines and Geology of Togo; Direction Nationale de la Géologie et des Mines - Mali; Geological Survey Department - Ghana; Ministère des Mines et de L'Industrie - Senegal; and the Ministry of Land, Mines and Energy - Liberia. An additional six other Geological Surveys from the region are also expected to join.