Geoscience Australia provides information on the nation's future capacity to produce mineral resources. Australia's Identified
Mineral Resources is an annual nation-wide assessment of Australia's ore reserves and mineral resources. All major and a number
of minor mineral commodities mined in Australia are assessed. It includes international rankings, summaries of significant
exploration results, brief reviews of mining industry developments, and an analysis of mineral exploration expenditure across
the States and Northern Territory. AIMR provides governments, industry, the investment sector and general community with an
informed understanding of Australia's known mineral endowment and level of exploration activity. An important objective is
to monitor whether resources are being discovered and developed for production at rates sufficient to maintain Australia's
position as a major supplier of mineral commodities.Australia's economic demonstrated resources (EDR) for the following 18
mineral commodities increased during 2007 - antimony, bauxite, cobalt, copper, gold, iron ore, manganese ore, ilmenite, rutile,
zircon, molybdenum, nickel, rare earths, silver, tungsten, uranium, vanadium and zinc. In the same period, EDR of eight commodities
- black coal, cadmium, diamonds (gem and industrial), lead, niobium, phosphate rock, platinum group metals and tantalum decreased.
EDR for brown coal, lithium, magnesite, shale oil and tin remained at levels similar to those reported in 2006.Increases in
EDR were due to on-going drilling and evaluation of known deposits resulting in the transfer (re-assessment) of resources
from inferred or sub-economic categories into EDR and the discovery of new deposits or extensions of known deposits. Sustained
increases in prices for most metal and mineral commodities over recent years has allowed companies to re-assess the economic
viability of lower grade resources and deposits which previously were considered to be uneconomic. Overall this has contributed
to an increase in EDR for many metal and mineral commodities.
Citation
Title Australia's Identified Mineral Resources 2008
Metadata standard for this record:
ANZLIC Metadata Profile: An Australian/New Zealand Profile of AS/NZS ISO 19115:2005, Geographic information - Metadata
standard version:
1.1
Metadata record identifier:
a05f7892-f005-7506-e044-00144fdd4fa6
Metadata record format is ISO19139 XML (MD_Metadata)