COBRA - The assessment of petroleum and mineral resource potential of the Amadeus Basin

The Central Oz Basins Resource Assessment (COBRA) initiative was a collaboration between CSIRO, the Northern Territory Geological Survey, the Geological Survey of Western Australia and industry partners Central Petroleum, Globe Mineral Resources and First Quantum Minerals. The project ran for 3 years from 2012 to 2015. COBRA consisted of geophysical, sedimentological, geochemical, hydrogeochemical, spectral, structural and mineralogical investigations that lead to an integrated 3D model of the Amadeus Basin. The Amadeus Basin extends over 170 000 km2 of the NT and WA and is part of the Neoproterozoic–Palaeozoic Centralian Superbasin. The basin contains two sedimentary packages of Neoproterozoic and Cambrian–Carboniferous age, separated by a regional unconformity and unconformably overlain by Cenozoic sedimentary cover. The COBRA study shows that the Amadeus Basin meets all criteria for hosting base metal deposits. The newly generated 3D basin architecture reveals that the preAmadeus rift succession (Figure 1), exposed along the SW basin margin (Tjauwata Group), is several kilometres thick between magnetic basement and Amadeus Basin fill. The delineation of this succession identifies an important potential source for base metals. The interpretation also highlights numerous new anticlines and synclines within the basin (Figure 2) that are fundamental for trapping