Mineral exploration

The Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety (DMIRS) Geoscience and Resource Strategy Division (GRSD), formerly Geological Survey of Western Australia (GSWA), promotes mineral exploration investment by improving the geological understanding of Western Australia, providing geoscientific data to the exploration industry, improving exploration efficiency, and helping to reduce exploration risk.

Geological advice

GSWA provides geological advice to the mineral exploration industry on the following legislation:

  • Mining Act 1978
  • Offshore Minerals Act 1994

This legislation requires mineral explorers to annually report on their exploration activities and submit any data collected to the department. After a period of confidentiality, exploration reports and data are made publicly available so that past exploration work is not repeated unnecessarily. These reports are available in the Western Australian Mineral Exploration Index (WAMEX).

Text search open file company reports from the WAMEX database is available from this website: WAMEX Search.

Harmonised open file surface and downhole geochemistry data is available here: Western Australia Exploration Geochemistry Online.

GSWA also gives geological advice on mining lease applications where applicants are proceeding under the Significant Mineralisation route (Sections 74 and 74A of the Mining Act 1978). These Mineralisation Reports are made publicly available online once approved by GSWA.
 

Greenfields exploration

The Geoscience and Resource Strategy Division manages the Exploration Incentive Scheme (EIS), a multi-million dollar State Government initiative aimed at encouraging innovative exploration, particularly in greenfield areas of Western Australia.

The Centre for Exploration Targeting at The University of Western Australia and GSWA have developed add-in tools for the ESRI ArcGIS platform. The Integrated Exploration Platform (IEP) uses innovative interactive visualization and image-analysis methods to assist in the interpretation of geoscience datasets. The IEP project is funded by the Australian Research Council LP 140100267.

Contact
For further information contact:
geological.survey@dmirs.wa.gov.au