A vast library of drill core and geological samples is now available at the $5 million expansion of the Exploration Data Centre (EDC) at Zillmere, officially opened by Minister Lynham last month.

The official opening attracted members of the Queensland Exploration Council, University of Queensland research students, media, contractors involved with the building and construction of the new facility, as well as Geological Survey of Queensland (GSQ) staff.

From left, Geoscientist Sarah Sargent discusses drill core samples with Chief Government Geologist Tony Knight, Member for Nudgee Leanne Linard and Minister Anthony Lynham.

Senior Field Hand, Lex Klein, uses a high lift machine to retrieve boxes of geological core from the core library at the Exploration Data Centre (EDC).

Geoscientist, Sarah Sargen, at the EDC.

The EDC provides access for industry and university researchers, explorers and government scientists (in support of the mining industry) to Queensland’s biggest “rock library” – a reference library containing extensive and significant geoscience information about Queensland. This will help in attracting exploration investors as they search for new mineral and energy deposits. Stored core, cuttings and samples can be examined in the EDC’s purpose-built, all-weather courtyard.

The expanded EDC

• houses in excess of 800 km of drill core and rock samples
• has a new state-of-the-art drill core storage warehouse which effectively doubles the capacity of the original facility and provides storage for more than 3000 new pallets of drill core (solid, cylindrical rock samples taken from beneath the earth’s surface) and cuttings from government and company exploration programs
• stores samples from Coal Seam Gas wells, water bores and 11,600 exploration holes collected over 100 years of exploration across the state
• provides industry with improved access to view and assess drill core, petrographic sections and geochemical samples representative of the stratigraphy of Queensland
• offers HyLogger™ technology – a non-destructive, scanning technique to assess mineralogical information, not available to the naked eye, of an entire drill core with minimal sample preparation or removal from its original tray.

HyLogger in action.

In the early 1950s, the EDC was established to store coal cores for the GSQ and in 1979 it was moved to Zillmere. These days, the EDC stores and preserves economically and scientifically valuable samples acquired through company and government exploration. For more information, contact Manager Exploration Data Centre Mark Livingstone.

In addition, DNRM operates The John Campbell Miles Drill Core Storage Facility (Mount Isa). For more information, contact Manager Drill Core Facility Randal Thorpe.

Drill core at the EDC.

Article by Geoscience Manager, GSQ, Paul Murtagh.