Geological exploration and resource modelling
After a shaky start to 2025, the Australian exploration sector appears to be tentatively turning a corner.
China quietly built the world’s most powerful critical minerals supply chains while other nations - including Australia - dozed through a geopolitical shift that now threatens economic security, trade independence, and defence readiness.
For years, exploration teams have wrestled with data chaos in the field.
When Katrina Garven, Principal Database Consultant at Alias Database Services, reflects on how mining and exploration companies use geological data, she sees an industry undergoing a quiet revolution.
Dr Sandra Occhipinti, research director in minerals at Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, is leading a team of more than 100 scientists focused on one of the most complex challenges in modern exploration: how to accelerate mineral discovery in covered terrains while simultaneously improving geometallurgical insight across the mining value chain.
In an industry awash with plug-and-play software and AI buzzwords, Oliver “Olly” Willetts, senior geologist and resource estimation consultant at SRK Consulting, stands out for his clear-eyed, problem-first approach to geoscientific data management.
A new compliance crackdown by the NSW Resources Regulator will see underground coal mines, tailings dams, and small-scale quarries come under fresh scrutiny as part of a statewide push to address safety risks and regulatory non-compliance from July through December 2025.
Western Australia’s listed companies have defied commodity headwinds to post a three point seven percent rise in collective market capitalisation, closing the 2025 financial year at A$362+ billion, according to the Deloitte WA Index Diggers & Dealers Special Edition.
At a time when mining operations are under growing pressure to optimise resource use, reduce waste, and demonstrate environmental stewardship, access to real-time data is no longer a luxury - it’s a necessity.
The South Australian Government has sharpened its focus on mining investment and global positioning with the release of a new Trade and Investment Strategy to 2030, launched today alongside a landmark global magnetite comparison study.
