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Ant and termites could provide a more cost effective and environmentally friendly way of exploring for new mineral deposits, avoiding the traditional method of expensive and often inaccurate drilling.
Mineral resources make up $A86.7 billion of Australia’s exports and new discoveries in many commodities are required to sustain production.
After 150 years of mining, gold and other mineral deposits near the surface have been discovered and miners need new tools to explore deeper underground.
CSIRO entomologist Dr Aaron Stewart says it is becoming increasingly hard to find new resources because much of Australia is covered by a layer of earth that hides buried minerals.
Termites and ants burrow through this level of material where a fingerprint of the underlying gold deposit is found and bring traces of the mineral to the surface.
“The insects bring up small particles that contain gold from the deposit’s fingerprint – or halo – and effectively stockpile it in their mounds,” Stewart said.
Stewart and his team found that small ant and termite mounds could be just as valuable in finding gold as the larger African mounds that stand several metres tall.
“It is surprising that relatively small nests are able to vertically move enough soil to be displaying evidence of the hidden resource,” he told Mining News .
According to Stewart, termite mound and ant nest testing can be used in conjunction with other tools to find new deposits.
“It may provide a way to narrow down the area that will need to be drilled and in doing so save money,” he said.
While explorers have been aware of the possible indicators in termite mounds, CSIRO is conducting some of the first serious scientific research.
Some companies have already put the technique into practice.
Canada-based mineral exploration company Merrex Gold released termite mound geological sampling earlier this month for its Siribaya gold project in Mali, which showed promising results.
Fifty samples had greater than 1 gram per tonne of gold, with the highest assaying at 63.1gpt of gold.
