From "CSIRO research for Australia" (1962) pdf page 59:
"The study of minerals was one of the Division of Industrial Chemistry's earliest activities. It was started in 1940, when Mr. R. G. Thomas (the first Chief of the Division of Mineral Chemistry) came over from Adelaide, where he had been a geochemist with the Division of Biochemistry and General Nutrition. During the war Mr. Thomas initiated a study of the ores of the less common metals, such as titanium, zirconium, hafnium, cerium, thorium, lithium, germanium, and uranium, many of which occur in the beach sands of eastern Australia. In the postwar era the group's pioneer work has been of great value to the mining industry, as one after another of these metals has proved to be of industrial importance. A notable achievement was the development of a process for separating zirconium, a metal used in the construction of nuclear reactors, from hafnium, which contaminates it.

Apart from its interest in the more uncommon metals, the Division of Mineral Chemistry has undertaken sponsored work on the extraction of copper and the cyanidisation method of refining gold."