Speaking at a Queensland Exploration Council breakfast in Brisbane today, Mines Minister Dr Anthony Lynham described the investment climate for explorers as “constrained” and said the funding was the government’s support to industry’s continuing their efforts to find the mines of tomorrow.

“They [the projects] will focus on developing new exploration techniques and geoscientific information to help mineral and energy-related explorers attract investment and better target exploration opportunities,” he said.

“This will help attract exploration investment back to Queensland, and support ongoing resource sector growth, jobs, royalties and other significant economic benefits the resource sector delivers for Queensland.”

Three projects are near Cloncurry in Queensland’s prime northwest metals zone and the fourth project focusses on gas in the Surat basin in the southwest.

Near Cloncurry, $400,000 will to go towards a program to help develop a new suite of geophysical tools, maps and datasets that can be used to lower risk and increase exploration success for copper and gold in the Mount Isa Eastern Succession.

A further $345,000 will go in a program to use advanced computer simulation to predict structural sites of new mineralisation in north-west Queensland, which will then be validated by ground surveys.

Finally a $90,000 program will develop advanced geochemical detection methods to help explorers better target and discover deep ore bodies.

In the Surat Basin the government will spend $200,000 in a program of subsurface geological data modelling and surface mapping to better understand Surat Basin geology, manage aquifer contamination risks and ensure environmentally sustainable gas extraction.

Lynham said the Queensland Exploration Council and the Association of Mining and Exploration Companies nominated the funded projects.