FOUR junior mineral explorers have received a total of $145,000 in grants for innovative research projects.
The grants are aimed at helping the explorers access technical resources to develop or test new exploration methods and concepts.
Junior mineral explorers would be able to link with specialist partners and other support industries.
Queensland Gold and Minerals Limited would use its $25,000 grant to link with Australian and overseas laboratories to date rocks in the Georgetown District that are related to mineral deposits.
Icon Resources Limited’s grant of $40,000 will be used to link with a Queensland geophysical company to trial experimental configurations and leading-edge processing techniques on a highly prospective mineral target near Burketown.
The target was located more than 300m below ground and the techniques trialled would attempt to ‘see through’ the overlying material.
Ozmin Resources Limited will use its $40,000 grant for detailed data gathering, review and interpretation over a large area north of Chillagoe to investigate the potential for an innovative deposit model.
ActivEX Limited and consultants will investigate an under-explored area of Queensland stretching over 215 kilometres from Esk to Gayndah.
The company will use its $40,000 grant for detailed data review and collection, including applying new technologies, to investigate the potential for porphyry style copper and gold deposits in an under-explored area where these techniques have not previously been applied.
Wilson said the Industry Network Initiative grants were the third set to be allocated under the Queensland Government’s Smart Mining – Future Prosperity program.
The others were the Collaborative Drilling and Cluster Formation Initiatives.
The closing date for Round 2 proposals for the Industry Network Initiative grants is 30 May 2008.
More information is available from www.dme.qld.gov.au.