The annual offshore petroleum exploration acreage release is part of the government’s strategy to promote offshore oil and gas exploration. Each year, the government invites companies to bid for the opportunity to invest in oil and gas exploration in Australian waters. The areas shown have been nominated by petroleum industry stakeholders to be considered for the 2022 acreage release. Areas nominated for release will not receive endorsement from government until submissions resulting from a public consultation process can be considered. This publication does not indicate a commitment to a particular course of action.

Geoscience Australia, in collaboration with Mineral Resources Tasmania, will be carrying out an airborne magnetic and radiometric survey in eastern Tasmania during 2022. The survey is part of the Australian Government’s Exploring for the Future program, which is committed to supporting a strong economy, resilient society and sustainable environment for the benefit of Australians. At its heart, the program is about contributing to a sustainable, long-term future for Australia through an improved understanding of the nation’s mineral, energy and groundwater resource potential. <p>

The pace, with which government agencies, researchers, industry, and the public need to react to national and international challenges of economic, environmental, and social natures, is constantly changing and rapidly increasing. Responses to the global COVID-19 pandemic event, the 2020 Australian bushfire and 2021 flood crisis situations are recent examples of these requirements. Decisions are no longer made on information or data coming from a single source or discipline or a solitary aspect of life: the issues of today are too complex. Solving complex issues requires seamless integration of data across multiple domains and understanding and consideration of potential impacts on businesses, the economy, and the environment. Modern technologies, easy access to information on the web, abundance of openly available data shifts is not enough to overcome previous limitations of dealing with data and information. Data and software have to be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR), processes have to be transparent, verifiable and trusted. The approaches toward data integration, analysis, evaluation, and access require rethinking to: - Support building flexible re-usable and re-purposeful data and information solutions serving multiple domains and communities. - Enable timely and effective delivery of complex solutions to enable effective decision and policy making. The unifying factor for these events is location: everything is happening somewhere at some time. Inconsistent representation of location (e.g. coordinates, statistical aggregations, and descriptions) and the use of multiple techniques to represent the same data creates difficulty in spatially integrating multiple data streams often from independent sources and providers. To use location for integration, location information needs to be embedded within the datasets and metadata, describing those datasets, so those datasets and metadata would become ‘spatially enabled’.

Record for source data hosted in the National Spectral Database (NSD) Aquatic Library Citation: Phinn, S. Roelfsema, C. Scarth, P., Dekker, A.G., Brando, V.E., Anstee, J.M. and Marks, A., (2005) An integrated remote sensing approach for adaptive management of complex coastal waters. Final Report – Moreton Bay Remote Sensing Tasks (MR2). Phinn, S. and Dekker, A.G (eds), Published by the CRC for Coastal Zone, Estuary and Waterway Management, Indooroopilly, Qld, Australia Publication: Dekker A.G., Phinn S.R., Anstee J.M., Bissett P. Brando V.E., Casey B., Fearns P., Hedley J., Klonowski W., Lee Z.P., Lynch M., Lyons M., Mobley C. and Roelfsema C. (2011) Intercomparison of shallow water bathymetry, hydro-optics and benthos mapping techniques in Australian and Caribbean coastal environments; Limnology & Oceanography Methods. 9:pp 396-425. | https://doi.org/10.4319/lom.2011.9.396 For further information and instructions to access the database go to the following URL: https://cmi.ga.gov.au/data-products/dea/643/australian-national-spectral-database

The 2021 Offshore Greenhouse Gas Storage Acreage Release is a key strategy of the Australian Government to reduce emissions and support Australia's resource sector. The GHG acreage release will provide companies the opportunity to explore for offshore carbon dioxide injection and storage locations. The 2021 GHG acreage release consists of 5 areas across the Bonaparte, Browse and Northern Carnarvon Basins.

Record for source data hosted in the National Spectral Database (NSD) Aquatic Library Citation: Jupp, D., Byrne, G. T., Anstee, J. M. McDonald, E.R., McVicar, T.R. ,Parkin, D; 1996 Port Phillip Bay benthic habitat mapping project task G2.2, CSIRO Division of Water Resources, Consultancy Report 96/43, 47 pp, CSIRO Australia For further information and instructions to access the database go to the following URL: https://cmi.ga.gov.au/data-products/dea/643/australian-national-spectral-database

This report presents geoscientific advice for the management of Antarctic Specially Protected Area (ASPA) No. 143, Marine Plain in the Vestfold Hills, East Antarctica. The advice is based on expert field observations and Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) imagery of the ASPA as well as a review of observations and reports from previous visitors and scientific literature on human disturbance in polar environments. This report builds on an earlier report (McLennan 2017) which was written prior to any site visits by Geoscience Australia scientists. The advice addresses questions raised by the Australian Antarctic Division regarding the ASPA management plan, particularly relating to access via foot and helicopter, and the condition of two fossil sites. Key assumptions include that the rate of visitors to Marine Plain in the next decade will remain low and that the remaining faunal fossil specimens will stay in place. If there is a large increase in visitor numbers to Marine Plain or the fossil fauna are intended to be removed, further advice should be sought about the impacts to Marine Plain values.

Geoscience Australia, in collaboration with state government agencies, has been collecting magnetotelluric (MT) data as part of the Australian Lithospheric Architecture Magnetotelluric Project (AusLAMP) for several years. This program aims to map the electrical resistivity of the rock layers, at depths from ten kilometres to hundreds of kilometres, across the entire continent. AusLAMP sites are each about 55 km apart from each other. Locations are chosen in consultation with landholders and other stakeholders to minimise impacts and avoid disturbance.MT data is collected using sensors that record naturally occurring variations of the Earth’s magnetic and electric fields. The equipment does not produce or transmit and signals. After four to six weeks the equipment is retrieved and the site restored to its original condition.

The Earthquake Scenario Selection is an interactive tool for querying, visualising and downloading earthquake scenarios. There are over 160 sites nationally with pre-generated scenarios available. These represent plausible future scenarios that can be used for earthquake risk management and planning (see https://www.ga.gov.au/about/projects/safety/nsha for more details).

This Annual Progress Report provides a detailed account of the progress made against the AusSeabed program activities planned for 2020/21. A summary of highlights can be found in the Annual Highlights Report. The detailed report presented here includes six sections: 1. Achievement summary 2. Annual financial statement 3. Detailed report 4. Key program learnings 5. Appendices providing details for various elements.