A 'soft-rock' petroleum-type approach to exploration for 'hard-rock' minerals in sedimentary basins D. Taylor I. Introduction Several major groups of ore deposits are found as tabular, stratiform bodies or as cross- cutting but essentially stratabound deposits within sedimentary basins. Important exam- ples are oxide and carbonate ores of iron and manganese, copper and zinc-lead sulphides and gold-uranium deposits. Where the host basins have been strongly in- verted and deeply eroded and the mineralized horizons brought to outcrop, the laterally extensive nature of the mineralization usually...

Coalbed gas has been considered a hazard since the early 19th century when the first mine gas explosions occurred in the United States in 1810 and France in 1845. In eastern Australia methane-related mine disasters occurred late in the 19th century with hundreds of lives lost in New South Wales, and as recently as 1995 in Queensland's Bowen Basin. Ventilation and gas drainage technologies are now in practice. However, coalbed methane recently is becoming more recognized as a potential source of energy; rather than emitting this gas to the atmosphere during drainage of gassy mines it can be...