Western Mining Corporation geophysical innovation over the decades

Summary This paper summarises geophysical research and development undertaken by Western Mining Corporation Exploration Division (WMC ExDiv) during the four decades 1965–2005. The culture of WMC ExDiv was based on a strong desire to achieve exploration success by applying and adapting cutting edge science. The ExDiv Geophysics group was vertically integrated and was encouraged to be innovative throughout its history. In particular, ExDiv operated its own geophysical field crews. The vertical integration produced rapid feedback that drove a virtuous circle of improvement in data acquisition, processing, and interpretation of electrical, electromagnetic, and potential fields data. Geophysics played a significant role in most of the exploration successes of WMC between 1965 and 2005, both in greenfields exploration, e.g. Kambalda and Olympic Dam, and in brownfields exploration, e.g. St Ives and Water Tank Hill. Induced polarisation (IP) fell out of favour in the Eastern Goldfields (WA) after the advent of transient electromagnetics (TEM) in the early 1970s but returned to favour after successful “deep IP” surveys on the Stuart Shelf in the early 1980s. During the 1990s the role of WMC geophysics expanded into its mines. A geophysical timeline has been included in an Appendix in order to better define the technical context of the WMC innovations.