This three-dimensional visualisation product is intended to accompany the reports from the Great Artesian Basin Water Resource Assessment, specifically "The three-dimensional visualisation of the Great Artesian Basin" report (Nelson et al., 2012). The report describes products, outputs and outcomes of the three-dimensional (3D) visualisation component of the Great Artesian Basin Water Resource Assessment (the Assessment). This report specifically encompasses the following topics associated with the 3D visualisation component:

- The requirements and potential benefits

- The effective datasets

- Methodology used in content creation

- The output datasets

- Discussions regarding outcomes, limitations and future directions

The Assessment is designed to assist water managers in the Great Artesian Basin (GAB) to meet National Water Initiative commitments.

The key datasets of the 3D visualisation component include contact surfaces between major aquifers and aquitards with coverage of significant portions of the GAB, well lithostratigraphic and wire-line data and hydrogeochemistry produced by State and National Agencies. These datasets are manipulated within GOCAD® to develop the 3D visualisation component and communication products for use by end users to assist visualisation and conceptualisation of the GAB. While many options have been investigated for distribution of these 3D products, 2D screen captures and content delivery via the Geoscience Australia (GA) World Wind 3D data viewer will be the most efficient and effective products.

This 3D visualisation should be viewed in reference to the "Lexicon of the lithostratigraphic and hydrogeological units of the Great Artesian Basin and its Cenozoic cover" report (Radke et al., 2012) also created as part of the Assessment.

LINEAGE (continued from Lineage field)

REFERENCES

1. Welsh, W.D. 2000. GABFLOW: A steady state groundwater flow model of the Great Artesian Basin, Bureau Rural Sciences. Canberra.

2. Nelson GJ, Carey H, Radke BM and Ransley TR (2012) The three-dimensional visualisation of the Great Artesian Basin. A report to the Australian Government from the CSIRO Great Artesian Basin Water Resource Assessment. CSIRO Water for a Healthy Country Flagship, Australia.

3. Radke BM, Kellett JR, Ransley TR and Bell JG (2012) Lexicon of the lithostratigraphic and hydrogeological units of the Great Artesian Basin and its Cenozoic cover. A technical report to the Australian Government from the CSIRO Great Artesian Basin Water Resource Assessment. CSIRO Water for a Healthy Country Flagship, Australia.

4. Ransley TR and Smerdon BD (eds) (2012) Hydrostratigraphy, hydrogeology and system conceptualisation of the Great Artesian Basin. A technical report to the Australian Government from the CSIRO Great Artesian Basin Water Resource Assessment. CSIRO Water for a Healthy Country Flagship, Australia.

5. Senior and associates (1997). Geoscience Australia internal data set and contour interpretations by Senior B. Canberra, Groundwater Group, Environmental Geoscience Division, Geoscience Australia.

6. Van der Wielen S, Kirkby A, Britt A, Nicoll M and Skirrow R (in prep.) An integrated, multiuse 3D map for the greater Eromanga Basin, Australia. Geoscience Australia record 2011/XX, Canberra.

METHOD

The data are visualised in the Geoscience Australia (GA) 3D Data Viewer, a virtual globe application developed at GA using the NASA World Wind Java SDK. A public version of the Viewer is available on the GA website

at http://www.ga.gov.au/apps/world-wind, and the source code for the tool is available open-source at

http://github.com/ga-m3dv/ga-worldwind-suite.