The Surface Hydrology Points (Regional) dataset provides a set of related features classes to be used as the basis of the production of consistent hydrological information. This dataset contains a geometric representation of major hydrographic point elements - both natural and artificial. This dataset is the best available data supplied by Jurisdictions and aggregated by Geoscience Australia it is intended for defining hydrological features.

Eonomic Fairways Explorer video presentation for PDAC 2015. The purpose of this video demonstration is to show the Proof of Concept (PoC) of the Economic Fairways Explorer application, which enables users to perform "what if" economic modelling and scenarios using GIS data. The Economic Fairways Explorer application is based upon the CIAP framework.

APPEA extended abstract

A video created for the Australia Minerals booth at the China Mining 2015conference. The video has key information translated into Mandarin.

This study presents the first analysis of benthic megafauna and habitats on the Sabrina Coast shelf, East Antarctica, encompassing an area that has been proposed as a Marine Protected Area. Analysis of seabed images indicates that this shelf is comprised of a relatively abundant benthic fauna compared to other parts of the Antarctic shelf, and is dominated by brittle stars, polychaete tubeworms and a range of other sessile and mobile taxa. The distribution of taxa across this shelf is strongly related ( = 0.592) to variations in water depth, latitude, substrate type and the occurrence of phytodetritus. Areas with a high percent cover by phytodetritus are associated with muddy/sandy sediments, with relatively high abundances of mobile holothurians and amphipods, while harder substrates have high abundances of brachiopods, various forms of hard bryozoans, polychaete tubeworms, a range of massive and encrusting sponges and sea whips. Brittle stars, irregular urchins and anemones occur throughout. Variations in substrate type largely reflect the scattered distribution of dropstones, which creates habitat heterogeneity at fine-scales. Several taxa are found only on areas of hard substrate, with most of these taxa showing a broad distribution across the study area, indicating that the density of dropstones is sufficient for most sessile invertebrates to disperse across the region. A few taxa (the hexactinellid sponge Anoxycalyx joubini and branching hydrocorals) show a more restricted distribution. The distribution of hydrocorals may be influenced by their limited dispersal capability, while A. joubini is most likely restricted by water depth. The occurrence of dropstones is associated with significant increases in taxa diversity, abundance and percent biological cover, enhancing the overall diversity and biomass of this ecosystem.

The Browse Basin on Australia's North West Shelf is a NE-trending Paleozoic to Cenozoic depocentre that contains more than 15 km of sediments. These sediments host significant hydrocarbon reserves, some of which are currently under development. The basin also has the potential to store large volumes of carbon dioxide. Recently-acquired aeromagnetic data over the Browse Basin provide new impetus for studies of the nature of basement, the role of structural inheritance and controls on the distribution of volcanic rocks. Initial interpretation of the new magnetic data has utilised magnetic source polygons and depth estimates derived from the tilt-angle filter. Exploration wells that intersect mainly volcanic flows or tuffaceous rocks tend to lie on or adjacent to source polygons. Computed tilt depths show that these sources tend to coincide with the depth to the top of volcanics in wells and that tilt depths extend deep into the basin (up to ~10 km). The magnetic susceptibility distribution inferred from minimally-constrained, regional-scale inversion models also indicates that magnetic anomalies arise from features deep in the basin and within basement. These results highlight the importance of understanding the role of volcanic rocks in basin evolution and their influence on reservoirs that may host hydrocarbons or that may be suitable for CO2 storage.

Flyer to be carried by GA officers while undertaking a building survey in the Adelaide Central Business District.

Tholeiitic intrusion-hosted nickel sulphide deposits are highly sort exploration targets due to their potential size and co-products platinum-group elements and copper. The Norilsk-Talnakh (Russia), Voisey's Bay (Canada) and Jinchuan (China) deposits are world class examples. Although Australia holds the largest economic resources of nickel in the world, its nickel resources are mainly sourced from komatiitic-hosted and lateritic deposits. Known resources of tholeiitic intrusion-hosted nickel sulphides are relatively small, with Nebo-Babel and Nova-Bollinger in Western Australia the most significant examples. Given the abundance of tholeiitic igneous rocks in Australia, this important deposit type seems to be under-represented when compared to other continents with similar geology. To support the discovery of world class nickel sulphide deposits in Australia, Geoscience Australia has recently undertaken a continental-scale GIS-based prospectivity analysis for tholeiitic intrusion-hosted deposits across Australia. This analysis exploits a suite of new relevant digital datasets recently released by Geoscience Australia. For example, the analysis utilises the Australian Mafic-Ultramafic Magmatic Events GIS Dataset which places mafic and ultramafic rocks across Australia into 74 coeval magmatic events based on geochronological data. Whole rock geochemistry of mafic and ultramafic rocks has been used to differentiate between magma series and discriminate between different magmatic events and units within those events. Other new datasets include crustal domain boundaries derived from both deep crustal seismic data and neodymium depleted mantle model age data as well as a coverage of the minimum thickness of mafic rocks in the crust derived from the Australian Seismogenic Reference Earth Model. This continental-scale GIS-based nickel sulphide prospectivity analysis uses a mineral systems approach to map the four essential components of ore-forming mineral systems; (1) sources of ore constituents, (2) crustal and mantle lithospheric architecture, (3) energy sources or drivers of the ore-forming system, and (4) gradients in ore depositional physico-chemical parameters. These four components are combined into a prospectivity map using weights-of-evidence GIS-based techniques, with the most prospective areas across the continent occurring where all components are present. The mineral systems approach allows for the identification of a much larger footprint than the deposit itself, and can be applied to greenfield and/or undercover areas. The results highlight areas that contain known tholeiitic intrusion-hosted nickel sulphide deposits, such as the Musgrave and Pilbara Provinces, as well as regions that do not contain any known deposits, such as the southern margin of the Arunta Province in the Northern Territory, the Mount Isa Province in Queensland and the Paterson Province in Western Australia.

This dynamic map service will be used to provide reference layers for the Department of Industry for use in the Multi Criteria Site Analysis (MCSA) for the RadWaste Project. This MCSA will be used to determine an appropriate location for establishing a radioactive waste storage facility.

InaSAFE is free and open source software for developing realistic disaster impact scenarios for better disaster planning and response. Originally developed in Indonesia, it is now being used in many countries around the world to inform disaster management decision making with a strong scientific evidence base. Designed to be simple to use, InaSAFE can rapidly output the estimated impacts of a hazard event on a given exposure dataset and translate this information into a series of questions targeting particular disaster management actions. This supports disaster managers to make better decisions about the resources that they may need to respond to a disaster event. This presentation will demonstrate case studies of InaSAFE use for a range of hazards (earthquake, tsunami, volcanic ash and fire) for locations in Australia and the region. This will demonstrate InaSAFE's capability and its applicability to a diverse range of disaster management problems.