From 16th to 30th Oct, I visited the China Geological Survey (CGS) in Beijing. The purpose of the visit was to discuss collaborative R&D between the Mineral Mapping Technologies Group (MMTG) of CSIRO Exploration & Mining (CEM) and CGS and to plan a joint mineral mapping project next year in western China. The aim of the project is, to us at CEM MMTG, to demonstrate and market the Australian hyperspectral mineral mapping technologies (sensing instruments, services, computer algorithms and operational methodologies) to potential Chinese users; and to the CGS, to learn and probably apply the Australian technologies to their work. This project will be financially supported by AusIndustry and CGS. The trip was partly supported by an EOC travel grant.

1. About CGS and the contacts

The CGS was founded in 1998 on the basis of the former Ministry of Geology and Mineral Resources. The CGS is directly under the Ministry of Land & Resources, which was formed by amalgamation of three ministries and departments including the former Geology and Mineral Resources. The CGS functions more like an administration and management body other than a geological survey organisation, as it does not carry out any geological survey itself. Instead, it administrates and allocates funds for nation-wide geological surveys and mineral exploration projects, which are carried out by provincial geological surveys and other organisations (e.g. research institutes and universities).

CGS receives from the China Central Government geological survey funds about RMB Y700M (= AUD$170M at the current exchange rate) per year. One of the CGS’ main tasks in the next 8-10 years is to complete 1:250,000 geological mapping for the vast and previously poorly mapped western part of the country, which comprises largely high-elevated mountainous and arid desert regions and has been poorly explored. CGS has decided to for the next 5-10 years emphasize on learning, developing and implementing new exploration technologies / techniques, and hyperspectral mineral mapping is identified as a priority.

The CGS operates on a calendar year budget circle. 15th to 28th Oct this year was a critical and busy time for the CGS, as all new projects and operation funds for 2002 were to be decided in the two weeks. Proposers of projects preliminarily selected from all over the country were called to Beijing to give presentations, and approval or otherwise of each proposed project was decided by a panel of ‘specialists’. That was why I was urgently invited to Beijing, as the collaborative project was also to be officially approved through the procedure.

The following key CGS people were met during the visit:

• Mr Tianzhu Ye, the Director General of CGS (retiring). Mr Ye led a CGS delegation and visited CEM MMTG early this year. He showed great interest in hyperspetcral mineral mapping, and was the key person who pushed hard for CGS to implement mineral mapping technologies / techniques. Ye was retiring. The new Director General was already appointed but had not been in position when I was in Beijing.
  
• Mr Baoliang Wang, the Director of Chief Geologist Office. As the position of Chief Geologist has been vacant since the founding of the CGS three years ago, Mr Wang actually plays the Chief Geologist role in CGS.
  
• Dr Ruijiang Wang, the Director of Mineral Resources Dept. MRD is a key department in CGS that administrates nation-wide mineral exploration and prospect evaluation projects. The ground-based mineral mapping component (with PIMA) of our planned project is to be funded from the MRD’s budget.
  
• Dr Qiming Peng, the Head of the Northern China Section of MRD. Dr Peng was my first contact in CGS, who I had been talking to about mineral mapping since CGS was founded 3 years ago. He helped establish communications between CGS and CEM MMTG.
  
• Mr Jixuan Liu, the Head of Remote Sensing Section of the Exploration Technologies Dept. Remote Sensing is one of a few sections (e.g. Geochemistry, Geophysics and Drilling) under the Exploration Technologies Dept. The planned airborne hyperspectral survey next year is to be funded from Liu’s budget.
  
• Dr Guangsheng Yan, Chief Geologist of the CGS R&D Centre. As the CGS mainly plays a management role, the R&D Centre provides technical supports to the CGS. In the plan, the R&D Centre will work with CEM MMTG in around-based mineral mapping to first learn about the technique / technology.
  
• Prof Runsheng Wang, Leader of the Hyperspectral Group, the Centre for Airborne Geophysical Surveys and Remote Sensing, Ministry of Land and Resources. This Centre will work directly with CEM MMTG in the airborne mineral mapping.
  

2. Activities

I arrived at Beijing at mid-night 15th Oct, and was arranged to stay at the Fangxing Hotel close to the CGS building.

As the whole CGS people were attending the first budget meeting, I was told to rest for a day on the 16th. Instead, I took the opportunity and visited the Institute of Remote Sensing Applications (IRSA), Chinese Academy of Sciences, with who I have a generic scientific exchange relationship. The meeting with Profs Tong Qingxi and Zheng Lanfeng proved to be very informative. As before, hyperspectral work at IRSA is mainly on environmental and agriculture applications, and currently Tong’s group is involved in collaboration with Japanese and Malaysians.

After a busy day on the 17th preparing for my presentation, I spent all day on the 18th meeting with the heads of three key departments of the CGS: the Chief Geologist Office, Mineral Resources, and the Remote Sensing Section of the Exploration Technologies. In the meetings, I again introduced to them the advanced mineral mapping technologies / techniques (e.g., instruments, algorithms, methodology) at CEM MMTG, and explained the way CEM MMTG operated in collaborative projects with mining companies. I clearly pointed out that financial support from industry is critical to the sustainable advancement of our mineral mapping R&D, and we discussed the funding mechanism of our planned collaborative project. The CGS confirmed their financial support to the collaborative project.

I took 3 days off from 19th to 21nd Oct and went south to my hometown to see my mother.

In the afternoon 22 Oct, I briefly visited the Rio Tinto Beijing Office and met with the manager, Dr Chengyu Wu. Dr Wu introduced the current exploration activities of the company (mainly for Ni and Cu). It did not look likely that Rio Tinto would sponsor any major mineral mapping projects or acquire airborne hyperspectral data in China.

On 23 Oct, at the Centre for Airborne Geophysics and Remote Sensing, I gave a talk on mineral mapping in the morning, and a brief demonstration on processing hyperspectral data in the afternoon. It appeared that a workshop on mineral mapping principles and applications and on the use of ENVI would be necessary as part of the planned project next year.

From 24 to 27 Oct, the R&D Centre of CGS organised a field trip to three mineralisation prospects. The field trip was for demonstrating and testing field mineral mapping with PIMA SP (I had a PIMA SP with me). We (three from the CGS R&D centre, two from the Hebei Provincial Geological Survey and myself) visited three mineralisation sites in the Taihang Mountains, about 100-200 km west of Beijing. The three sites represented a skarn hosted Cu-Fe-Pb-Zn, a quartz vein related Pb-Zn, and a fracture-controlled Au mineralisation prospect. At each site, a traverse across a mineralised / hydrothermally altered part was measured with PIMA SP. As expected, the results were very much straightforward and the Chinese colleagues were very happy with them.

On 29 and 30 Oct, more meetings were arranged in Beijing with a few key CGS people about the project and funding issues. As a result, a MOU was signed. It is agreed that once the project is approved by both sides (likely in Dec 2001 for the CGS side), details of the work plan, IP strategy and funding arrangement will need to be outlined and an agreement / contract to be signed.

I left Beijing for Sydney on the evening of 30th Oct.

3. Summary of the Project Planned

Airborne hyperspectral mineral mapping will be the main part of the collaborative project. A test site will be selected in the Tuwu region in the eastern part of the Xingjiang Autonomous Region. Tuwu is an arid region typical of the Gorby desert landscape in northwestern China. There are a few major porphyry-related Cu-Au mineralisation occurrences found in the past few years, and the CGS has identified Tuwu as a key region for major Cu-Au findings.

HyMap will be used in the airborne hyperspectral survey. A TRA grant from AusIndustry (DISR) will cover the cost of mobilising HyMap from Australia to China, and the CGS will provide funds to cover all in-country costs, as well as CSIRO MMTG’s salaries. Also under consideration is a parallel survey using a Chinese airborne scanner (OMAIS, made by the Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sci), as the CGS is keen to compare the data quality of the two instruments.

Ground-based mineral mapping using PIMA SP will be the other component of the planned project. A mineralised part of the airborne surveyed area will be selected for the ground work. This field mineral mapping work aims to map details of mineralisation-related hydrothermal alteration zonation to demonstrate the effectiveness of using a field portable instrument in identifying and mapping a complex mineralisation system. In the plan, CGS will purchase two PIMA SP, probably early next year.