Australia's Mineral Resource Estimates and Exploration Trends for 2009

Geoscience Australia's 2010 report provides estimates of Australia's identified mineral resources as of December 2009 for major and minor commodities. The data compares long-term resource estimates with short-term industry ore reserves and includes analysis of mineral exploration expenditures for 2008-09. World rankings for Australia's resources are calculated using United States Geological Survey publications.

Use Cases

• Compare long-term resource potential with short-term mining plans based on the national ore reserve totals.
• Analyze trends in mineral exploration expenditure based on the 2008-09 and calendar year 2009 data.
• Benchmark Australia's mineral resources globally based on the world rankings derived from USGS data.
• Study significant industry developments in the Australian mining sector based on the report's summary.

Strengths

• Resource estimates are based on both published and unpublished data available to Geoscience Australia.
• Data integrates mine production figures from the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences.
• Provides a comparative view using both long-term resource estimates and industry-defined short-term ore reserves.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data is from 2009; freshness should be verified for current applications.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Estimates based on published and unpublished data available to Geoscience Australia; mine production data from ABARES; world rankings from USGS publications.

Time Range

Resources estimated as of December 2009; exploration expenditure analyzed for 2008-09 and calendar year 2009.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-20 01:43:50.661508; the underlying data is from 2009.

Geography

Australia