REGOLITH-LANDFORM MAPPING AS A VECTOR TO GOLD MINERALISATION UNDERCOVER: INSIGHTS FROM BALLARAT, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA

Staff from the Geological Survey of Victoria have recently completed a regolith mapping project in the Ballarat–Creswick area. The project was aimed to map and characterise the bedrock geochemistry of the major regolith–landform units and to determine if a major orogenic gold deposit, such as the Ballarat East goldfield, has a distinctive expression in the regolith. The mapping centred on a 10 × 28 km zone extending from the Ballarat East Goldfield in the south, north to Spring Hill, east of Creswick. This area was selected as a representative cross-section of the central Victorian goldfields, as it contains many elements of the landscape, a variety of differing surface and bedrock geological units and a centre of significant gold production.