Sams Creek is a joint venture between Oceana and MOD Resources as operator, but MOD has put the project on hold to focus on an African venture.
GNS Science minerals geologist Dr Patricia Durance said while the four-year work programme included GNS staff from Lower Hutt, Wairakei and Dunedin in collaboration with the universities of Otago, Waikato and Auckland, the project had also budgeted for up to four PhD and four master's students to do graduate work with some of the key researchers.
''We have also engaged with, and hope to develop partnerships with, some of the smaller exploration and mining companies operating in New Zealand as the programme progresses,'' she said.
While new aerial aeromagnetic surveys were not planned for the project, use would be made of the $4 million Antipodes Gold (former Glass Earth Gold) aeromagnetic survey, which covered large swaths of Otago.
''The researchers will make use of existing government-funded, regional-scale geophysical data sets that include aeromagnetic and gravity survey data,'' Dr Durance said.
She said field work and soil and rock sampling would be part of this programme and would include sampling from test drill cores and mine sites, as well as the regional areas around existing mineralised structures.
The programme's initial focus would be on three gold-bearing mineral systems: the epithermal system at Waihi, the orogenic system at Macraes and the intrusion-related gold system at Sams Creek.
