Museum staff conduct fieldwork for a variety of reasons, mainly to provide research material, reference material, specimens for display and educational examples for teaching and for talks given by staff.
Fieldwork can take from one day to several weeks, depending on how far away the field team has to travel, how long the team has to spend in one or several places and the weather.
Field equipment also varies according to the task, ranging from a geological hammer, tape measure, compass and notebook, to geophysical equipment such as a proton precession magnetometer. If zircon concentrates are being collected, standard field equipment will include a panning dish, sieves, shovel, wash bottle, funnels and sample tubes.
Rock specimens collected during fieldwork are used for preparation of thin sections, age dating by radioactive methods (e.g. potassium-argon), trace element analysis, and isotope and major element chemical analysis. Mineral specimens are collected for chemical analysis, crystal structure studies, infra-red and Raman studies, or for geographical distribution studies. Sources of high quality specimens are investigated to collect minerals for displays and exhibitions. Occasionally, a potential new mineral will be the focus of intense study.
Fieldwork within the Mineralogy and Petrology Section and Geodiversity Research Centre has covered large areas of eastern and central Australia, but has been most concentrated in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania.
A notable mineral collecting trip to Browns Prospect, Rum Jungle, Northern Territory in 1977 added many superb display and research specimens of malachite, cerussite and pyromorphite to the collection.
Other important field trips were to:
A more recent mineral field trip studied the geology and zeolite minerals of Kulnura Quarry, near Gosford, New South Wales, in 2003.
Other recent work is related to projects on Eastern Australian volcanism, conducted by F.L. Sutherland and I.T. Graham in the Belmore Volcanic Province near Grafton, New South Wales, and in central and eastern Victoria.
Field studies in the Walcha district, have studied the geology and gem concentrates, especially zircons.
Other areas studied during field trips for Geodiversity Research Centre projects:
Copyright © Australian Museum, 2004