The object of my trip to the United States of America was to discuss problems of micropalaeontology with various authorities in that country, to visit the palaeontological laboratories of the United States Geological Survey and National Museum, State Universities, Museums and laboratories of oil companies and to enquire into the latest techniques used in oil-field laboratories. I was also to attend the joint Annual Convention of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Society of Economic Palaeontologists and Mineralogists and Society of Exploratory Geophysicists at St. Louis. This report gives an account of the institutions visited by the author and the principal results of the visit.

<div>The Western Approaches to Torres Strait Bathymetry survey was acquired for the Australian Hydrographic Office (AHO) onboard the MV Pacific Conquest, an unmanned vehicle USV and VH-VEH Cessna 441 aircraft during the period 29 October 2020 – 21 February 2021.&nbsp;</div><div>This is a contracted survey conducted for the Australian Hydrographic Office by Fugro Australia Marine as part of the Hydroscheme Industry Partnership Program (HIPP). </div><div>The survey area is east of the Western approaches to the Torres Strait. </div><div>Bathymetry data was acquired using a Kongsberg EM2040 (Dual/Single Head and Dual swath), EM2040P and LADS HD+ and RIEGL VQ-820-G systems and processed using CARIS HIPS & SIPS 11.3.17, LADS HD+ GS, RiWorld processing software. </div><div>The dataset was then exported as a 30m resolution, 32 bit floating point GeoTIFF grid of the survey area.</div><div>This dataset is not to be used for navigational purposes.</div>

<div>The Lacepede Channel bathymetry survey was acquired for the Australian Hydrographic Office (AHO) onboard the MV Pacific Conquest and USV Blue Shadow - 901 during the period 19 May 2021 – 22 Sep 2021. This was a contracted survey conducted for the Australian Hydrographic Office by Fugro as part of the Hydroscheme Industry Partnership Program. The survey area encompases an area in Lacepede Channel, Western Australia. Bathymetry data was acquired using a Kongsberg EM2040 Mk II, and processed using Caris Hips & Sips processing software. The dataset was then exported as a 30m resolution, 32 bit floating point GeoTIFF grid of the survey area.</div><div>This dataset is not to be used for navigational purposes.</div>

This report is a summary of information collected between November, 1948 and July, 1949 in the course of visits to the United Kingdom and the United States. The main subjects investigated were the complete gasification of coal, particularly in respect of its application to Victorian brown coal, the production of oil by synthesis and the production and refining of shale oil. Information was sought on a considerable number of other interests in the field of fuel technology as the opportunity offered. The authorities consulted were invariably experts in their respective fields, and great care was taken to record their information accurately. The report is a summary of recent developments and not an exhaustive study of the subjects mentioned. A considerable mass of detail has been excluded but is available on record for further reference.

This study presents a method for rapidly collecting, processing, and interrogating real-time abiotic and biotic seabed data to determine seabed habitat classifications. This is done from data collected over a large area of an acoustically derived seabed map, along multidirectional transects, using a towed small camera-sled. The seabed, within the newly designated Point Harris Marine Reserve on the northern coast of San Miguel Island, California, was acoustically imaged using sidescan sonar, then ground-truthed using a towed small camera-sled. Seabed characterizations were made from video observations, and were logged to a laptop computer (PC) in real time. To ground-truth the acoustic mosaic, and to characterize abiotic and biotic aspects of the seabed, a three-tiered characterization scheme was employed that described the substratum type, physical structure (i.e., bedform or vertical relief), and the occurrence of benthic macrofauna and flora. A crucial advantage of the method described here, is that preliminary seabed characterisations can be interrogated and mapped over the sidescan mosaic and other seabed information within hours of data collection. This ability to rapidly process seabed data is invaluable to scientists and managers, particularly in modifying concurrent or planning subsequent surveys.

The following notes are designed to summarise the work done during my recent visit to North America and United Kingdom. The purpose of the trip to the U.S.A. was to act as an alternate representative at the International Materials Conference, Washington. The International Materials Conference was convened in February 1951, its primary function being to ensure the equitable distribution of certain scarce commodities, and to consider what steps should be taken to expand production, increase availabilities, and conserve supplies.

Deep-water demersal fishes are an important component of continental shelf and slope ecosystems and play an important role in the economies of many countries. Strong and predictable relationships of fishes with seabed habitats, in conjunction with rapid advances in acoustic seabed mapping capabilities, indicate there is great potential for using habitats as proxies or &#145;surrogates&#146; to predict species distribution and abundance patterns at broad regional scales. However, few studies have evaluated this potential in complex seabed environments. In this study, we examined the spatial distributions, assemblage composition, and benthic habitat associations of deep-water demersal fish species over three spatial scales across Cordell Bank, a deep-water bank in central California. Demersal fishes were counted and habitats quantified from 60 strip-transects allocated over the extent of the bank using in situ observer and video-recorded data from the two-person Delta submersible. Both abundance and distribution of demersal fish species on Cordell Bank were strongly correlated with spatial location and habitat composition on the bank. Habitat structure was heterogeneous at several spatial scales. At broad scales, the rocky bank itself contained the highest diversity of both habitats and fishes. At intermediate scales, transition zones (10-100s of m wide) between the bank and continental slope and shelf sediments supported a diverse and characteristic suite of fish species. Habitats were also heterogeneous at finer-scales (1-10s of m) within these broad-scale zones, and fish responses to these habitat characteristics were taxon-specific, and often contingent on the spatial configuration of fine scale habitats within the broader-scale landscape. The results of this study indicate that for many species it is not sufficient to just know the fine-scale habitat association to predict fish assemblages.