The Australian Mineral Foundation and Porter GeoConsultancy, undertook the first of their International Study Tour series of professional development courses by visiting a representative selection of the most significant porphyry and epithermal copper and gold deposits of the South-east Asian Archipelago, in Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Indonesia.

  The tour was divided into three optional modules and visited eleven mines and projects. It was supported by full day overview seminars in each of Port Moresby, Manila and Jakarta, presented by renowned local experts and industry specialists.

  These seminars were aimed at providing an overview and context setting to the deposits to be visited and allowing a comparison with the others that were not on the tour schedule. In addition at each there was a presentation on the political, social and regulatory environment in each country of the region.

  The tour commenced in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea on the evening of Sunday 13 April and ended at Denpasar on the Indonesian island of Bali on the evening of Tuesday 6 May 1997.

Photo Album  -  See who went.

Review Article  -  as published in  Gold Gazette.

  The program included the following mine/project visits:

Papua New Guinea Module  -  6 days, from 13 to 18 April, 1997

Ok Tedi, a large porphyry and porphyry-skarn Cu-Au deposit, in the Star Mountains of western Papua New Guinea, ~500 km to the east of Grasberg;

Porgera, low-sulphidation, alkalic, epithermal Au deposit associated with a shoshonitic intrusive complex of micro-gabbro to diorite & feldspar porphyry;

Lihir, low-sulphidation quartz-sulphide Au (-Cu) deposit overprinting a low grade proto-porphyry system;

Philippines Module  -  10 days, from 18 April, 1997

Santo Tomas II, an underground block cave mine exploiting a pipe like deposit at the contact between a diorite plug and a suite of metavolcanics;

Guinaoang, a porphyry copper prospect 6 km to the SE of Lepanto, possibly part of the same gross mineralised sytem as Lepanto Far Southeast;

Lepanto-Far South-East, a high sulphidation enargite gold lithocap to the underlying Far-Southeast porphyry copper-gold deposit;

Acupan-Antamok, a Pliocene epithermal breccia pipe gold deposit overprinting an early porphyry style system associated with a dacite porphyry;

Dizon, a porphyry copper-gold deposit associated with a small quartz-diorite porphyry on the margins of a stratovolcano;

Indonesian Module  -  9 days, from 28 April, 1997

Mt Muro, one of the principal epithermal gold deposits of the Central Kalimantan Gold Province;

Grasberg, one of the world's largest and highest grade porphyry and skarn Cu-Au deposits, in West Papua, hosted by a Pliocene intrusive complex;

Batu Hijau, porphyry copper-gold deposit in southwestern Sumbawa Island - at that stage an un-developed major exploration project;

  This study tour was planned, organised and managed by Porter GeoConsultancy as a professional development course on the curriculum of the Australian Mineral Foundation.   Image above:   Trucks in the mist at Ok Tedi.