Publication Name: PESA Journal No. 1
Authors: E S T O'DRISCOLL,
Publication Volume: 1
Date Published: August 1982
Number of Pages: 22
Reference Type: Journal Article
Abstract:
Patterns in geology have first to be discoveredin their relationship to ore and oil, and must then
be applied to exploration for the purpose of
making new discoveries of these resources.
Patterns are found in various kinds of field data
in geology, geophysics, geochemistJy and
geomorphology.
Initial considerations are of hard?rock areas,
where linear pattern discontinuities are found
to be related to major ore-deposits of various
ages. It is suggested that the linear dis?
continuities are deep crustal fractures operative
throughout time as loci of high-energy transfer,
which give access to igneous and volcanic
activity, and which are the deep foundations that
control overlying sedimentaJy processes and
basin development. Examples are given of the
obvious correspondence between major
discontinuities and ore and petroleum deposits.
An earth global lineament system is identified
to which the world's hundred biggest petroleum
deposits are related. The world's two biggest oil
and gas deposits lie directly on these global
lineaments, which must be of fundamental
significance. A similar pattern of global
lineaments is found on the planet Mars. Concepts
of continental drift (on earth) are accommodated
in the global pattern, but some aspects of plate
tectonics may need to be revised. It is necessary
to distinguish speculative ideas from practical
and empirical field observations which can be
applied directly by resource explorers to find new
deposits.
Major ore and petroleum deposits are found
to have the same kind of structural signature
repeated at different scales. Australia presently
has the capacity to lead the world in these ideas,
but this position wiD be maintained only if
a campaign of innovative thinking is launched
in which Universities revise their curricula
accordingly, and exploration companies make
major changes in their conventional approaches
to tectonics.