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Rank-Size Statistical Assessments of Undiscovered Gold Endowment in the Bendigo and Stawell Zones (Victoria) and the Mossman Orogen (Queensland), Australia: Comparison with Three-Part Assessment Results

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Abstract

The Bendigo and Stawell zones in Victoria and the Mossman Orogen in north Queensland host numerous orogenic gold deposits and are likely to contain significant undiscovered gold resources. This paper discusses applications of Zipf’s law to estimate the scale of residual gold endowment in each of the regions. Testing various plausible scenarios on whether or not the largest deposit in each region has been discovered and its endowment adequately evaluated provided some measure of uncertainty of assessment results. The Bendigo and Stawell zones are estimated to host 12 undiscovered ore fields with >31 t (1 Moz) of contained gold and another 35 undiscovered ore fields with >10 t (0.32 Moz) of gold, containing in total 1600 t (51 Moz) of gold. The total residual orogenic gold endowment of the Mossman Orogen is estimated to be between 3 and 30 t of gold, contained in extensions of known deposits and up to six significant undiscovered gold ore fields each containing >1 t of gold. These estimates are comparable to results of recent three-part quantitative mineral resource assessments for those areas.

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Acknowledgments

The study discussed in this manuscript was performed in the Geological Survey of Queensland (Australia). It was part of the author’s PhD research at the University of Western Australia, supported by the Centre for Exploration Targeting. An early version of this manuscript was reviewed by Alok Porwal, Cam McCuaig, Don Singer, Tony Christie, Subhash Jaireth, whose comments, as well as those of John Carranza and two anonymous reviewers, helped to improve the paper. The paper is published with permission of the Chief Government Geologist (Geological Survey of Queensland).

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  1. Geological Survey of Queensland, PO Box 15216, City East, QLD, 4002, Australia

    Vladimir A. Lisitsin

  2. Centre for Exploration Targeting, School of Earth and Environment, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA, 6009, Australia

    Vladimir A. Lisitsin

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  1. Vladimir A. Lisitsin
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Correspondence to Vladimir A. Lisitsin.

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Lisitsin, V.A. Rank-Size Statistical Assessments of Undiscovered Gold Endowment in the Bendigo and Stawell Zones (Victoria) and the Mossman Orogen (Queensland), Australia: Comparison with Three-Part Assessment Results. Nat Resour Res 25, 269–282 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11053-015-9286-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11053-015-9286-8

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