Relationships between palaeogeography and opal occurrence in Australia: A data-mining approach

► Palaeogeography was found to be a strong indicator of Australian precious opal. ► A data-mining methodology was used to quantitatively extract key time sequences. ► Only 11% of the entire Great Artesian Basin undergoes favourable palaeogeography. ► Important environmental transitions were extracted using data-mining approaches. ► The methodology was used to construct a map indicating favourable regions.