
%0 Journal Article
%A Hillis, Richard 
%T Coiled tubing drilling and real-time sensing &#2014; Enabling &#39;prospecting drilling&#39; in the 21st Century?
%J ASEG Extended Abstracts
%D 2015/03/12
%V 2015
%N 1
%P 1-1
%K 
%R https://doi.org/10.1071/ASEG2015AB063
%U https://www.publish.csiro.au/paper/ASEG2015AB063 
%X New Tier 1 discoveries are critical to maintaining Australia&#39;s mineral resource inventory without continuing decline in the grade of mined resources. Such discoveries are becoming less common because, increasingly, remaining prospective, under-explored areas are obscured by deep, barren cover. Improving the rate of Tier 1 discoveries requires a step change in mineral exploration techniques that may be provided by &#39;prospecting drilling&#39;, i.e. extensive drilling programs that map mineral systems beneath cover, enabling geophysical and geochemical vectoring towards deposits during a single drilling campaign. The rationale for &#39;prospecting drilling&#39; is provided (i) a dataset of antimony from the Kalgoorlie district of Western Australia, and; (ii) analysis of hypogene alteration systems of IOCG deposits in South Australia. The technological platform for &#39;prospecting drilling&#39; must include low cost drilling due to the dense subsurface sampling required. This may be provided by transferring coiled tubing (CT) drilling technology, with its continuous drill pipe on a reel, from the oil and gas sector. CT drilling can be complemented by real-time downhole and top-of-hole sensing providing petrophysics, structure/rock fabric, geochemistry and mineralogy. The first manifestation of real-time, downhole sensing is DET CRC&#39;s newly developed autonomous sonde that is deployed by the driller and logs natural gamma radiation as the dill rods are pulled. Experimentation on real-time, top-of-hole sensing (on drill cuttings from diamond cored holes) has successfully demonstrated geochemistry and mineralogy determination with the necessary depth-fidelity. At the target cost of $50/metre, CT drilling could cost-effectively undertake &#39;prospecting drilling&#39; in large, covered provinces such as the IOCG-prospective Gawler Carton of South Australia. 
