PRECIOUS ROCKS’ NEW DIGS

A $ 2.4M upgrade to Mineral Resources Tasmania facilities will underwrite the continued prosperity of the state’s mining industry, Primary Industries and Water Minister Guy Barnett says.

MRT has more than 700km of rock core samples, which form an invaluable resource, Mr Barnett said.

The upgrade to the Mornington Core Library will consolidate work done at two sites and provide an upgraded and expanded state- of- the- art facility for geoscientific and analytical functions, he told reporters.

“This is a significant investment in a sector that supports more than 5100 direct jobs, contributes more than 51 per cent of our state’s exports, and produces product with a value of more than $ 2bn each year,” Mr Barnett said.

“This is the first major upgrade since the library was first opened 30 years ago.”

University of Tasmania Earth Sciences head Sebastien Meffre said secrets still lurked on the shelves of the core library.

“There will be surprises because the earth is incredibly complex,” he said.

“It’s really, really important to keep these cores because with new technologies we can get down to the sub- micron level

and characterising a core at the sub- micron levels would take gigabytes of information. At the moment, it’s not feasible to digitise all that information and keeping those core samples that have been acquired at great cost is absolutely important.”

The Liberals promised to

move the MRT to Burnie before the 2014 state election.

“The government’s policy has been implemented in full, we’re now in stage four of that policy commitment, with 12 full- time positions based out of the Burnie MRT office,” Mr Barnett said.