industry interaction
Industry interaction, technology transfer and commercialisation
program
GEMOC relies on a vigorous interaction with the mineral exploration
industry at both the research and the teaching/training levels. The
research results of the Centre’s work are transferred to the industry and
to the scientific community by:
-
interaction through collaborative industry-supported Honours, MSc and PhD
projects
-
short courses relevant to the industry and government sector users, designed
to communicate and transfer new technologies, new techniques and new knowledge
in the discipline areas covered by the Key Centre
-
one-on-one research collaborations and shorter-term consultancies on industry
problems involving national and international partners
-
provision of high quality geochemical analysis and interpretations to industry
and government organisations, extending our industry interface
-
use of Macquarie Research Limited (eg DIATREEM) and INAX (ANU) consultancies,
which employ and disseminate the technological developments carried out
by the Centre
-
GLITTER, an on-line data-reduction program for Laser Ablation ICPMS analysis
developed by GEMOC and (CSIRO GEMOC participants), is available commercially
-
collaborative relationships with technology manufacturers (more detail
in the section on Technology Development):
-
GEMOC (Macquarie) is the Perkin-Elmer Australian demonstration site
-
GEMOC (Macquarie) is the international Alpha test site for Merchantek
Lasers
Support sources
GEMOC industry support includes:
-
direct funding of research programs
-
"in kind" funding including field support (Australia and overseas), access
to proprietary databases, sample collections, digital datasets
-
collaborative research programs (eg SPIRT, APA Industry and PhD program
support)
-
assistance in the implementation of GIS technology in postgraduate programs
-
participation of industry colleagues as guest lecturers in senior courses
(eg Bachelor of Technology)
-
extended visits to Macquarie by industry personnel for interaction and
research
The Slave Craton in analysis:Kevin Kivi (Kennecott Canada),
Rondi Davies and Norm Pearson at the LAM-ICPMS.
Progress in1998
-
The mineral exploration industry funded three postgraduate student projects
in 1998. In each case, the companies have provided invaluable in-kind
support, and have been closely involved in shaping the research project.
-
A new collaborative research project was started within the Lithosphere
Mapping strand, (following the success of a separate project in 1996),
with Kennecott Canada Inc. 1997 visits of GEMOC staff to Kennecott
operations in Vancouver and Thunder Bay, and visits of Kennecott staff
to Macquarie have been essential to the high-profile outcomes, many of
which were presented at the 7th International Kimberlite Conference in
Cape Town in April (see Appendix 4 for abstract titles).
-
The impact of GEMOC’s work on Lithosphere Mapping and applications to new
concepts for Area Selection and Target Evaluation in the diamond exploration
industry were evidenced by 23 presentations by industry at the 7th International
Kimberlite Conference in Cape Town that used our new methodologies.
-
Industry Reports completed for collaborative and consulting projects
-
A collaborative project using gravity data of the Siberian lithosphere
to interpret effective elastic thickness and integrate this with tectonic
analysis and geochemical data, was negotiated with Western Mining and VSEGEI,
St Petersburg. Planning and workshop sessions at Macquarie with participants
from Western Mining, VSEGEI and GEMOC are key activities.
-
De Beers (Johannesburg) provided capital contributory funding for the new
MC-ICP-MS and have a schedule of regular visits to Macquarie to participate
in aspects of the development of LAM-ICPMS and MC-ICPMS techniques and
applications
-
BHP is sponsoring a strand of technology development (and a related research
project) on the LAM-ICPMS: Dr Steve Walters spends research periods at
Macquarie to participate in this collaboration
-
Many companies have provided high levels of in-kind support in the form
of samples: these include access to over 1000 diamonds through Rio Tinto,
Kennecott Canada and Diamond Ventures Ltd, field logisitic support by Ashton
Mining for PhD students to sample the Merlin and Coanjula (NT) kimberlites,
volcanics and xenoliths.
-
The Industry and Training Workshop on "Tectonic Evolution of East and Southeast
Asia: A Framework for Reconstruction and Resources" was given by distance
delivery with 4 volumes of notes and the interactive CD-ROM. These
have also been used for in-house training in several companies and at AGSO.
-
Mr Bruce Wyatt, Director of Research and Technical Services at Stockdale
Prospecting Ltd has a formal research collaboration and spends regular
research time at Macquarie
-
numerous industry visitors spent varying short periods at GEMOC in 1998
to discuss our research and technology development (see visitor list, Appendix
3)
-
DIATREEM continued to provide LAM-ICPMS analyses of garnets and chromites
to the diamond-exploration industry on a routine basis, in cooperation
with CSIRO-EM
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GEMOC publications, preprints and non-proprietary reports are available
on request for industry libraries
1998
Annual Report | GEMOC
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Document: Indust98.htm / Author: Kelsie Dadd / Created: 1 May
1999.