Williams et al. (2009) report on new multibeam sonar bathymetry and underwater video data collected from submarine canyons and seamounts on Australia's southeast continental margin to 'investigate the degree to which geomorphic features act as surrogates for benthic megafaunal biodiversity' (p. 214). The authors describe what they view as deficiencies in the design of the Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the southeast region of Australia, in which geomorphology information was employed as a surrogate to infer regional-scale patterns of benthic biodiversity. This comment is designed to support and underscore the importance of evaluating MPA designs and the validity of using abiotic surrogates such as geomorphology to infer biodiversity patterns, and seeks to clarify some of the discrepancies in geomorphic terminologies and approaches used between the original study and the Williams et al. (2009) evaluation. It is our opinion that the MPA design criteria used by the Australian Government are incorrectly reported by Williams et al. (2009). In particular, we emphasise the necessity for consistent terminology and approaches when undertaking comparative analyses of geomorphic features. We show that the MPA selection criteria used by the Australian Government addressed the issues of false homogeneity described by Williams et al. (2009), but that final placement of MPAs was based on additional stakeholder considerations. Finally, we argue that although the Williams et al. (2009) study provides valuable information on biological distributions within seamounts and canyons, the hypothesis that geomorphic features (particularly seamounts and submarine canyons) are surrogates for benthic biodiversity is not tested explicitly by their study.

The contemporary crustal stress regime in south-eastern Australia can be traced back to the terminal Miocene. Increased coupling of the Australian and Pacific Plate boundary at this time resulted in regional-scale tilting, local uplift and erosion, and in the formation of unconformities in southern Australian basins. In the onshore Gippsland Basin the unconformity surface is overlain by an extensive sheet of fluvial sediment known as the Haunted Hill Formation (HHF). Open folds and flexures developed within the HHF over blind reverse and reverse oblique faults provide a record of deformation spanning much of the neotectonic period. The predominance of flexures and folds rather than discrete faulting at the surface complicates the assessment of slip rates over the last few seismic cycles. However, ages from an undeformed fill terrace bordering the Morwell River and crossing the Morwell Monocline suggest that it has been a minimum of 70 ka since the last deformation event on at least this structure. Stream profiles crossing the Snake Ridge, Yallourn and Rosedale Monoclines similarly reveal no evidence for recent tectonic displacement. Cosmogenic radionuclide (10Be and 26Al) burial ages of siliceous sediments sampled from tectonically uplifted HHF on the Yallourn, Morwell and Snake Ridge Monoclines provide constraint on the long-term evolution of these structures. Combined with stratigraphic and tectonic records from the offshore Gippsland Basin, these data provide a basis for informed seismic hazard assessment.

This map shows area of the West Coast Tasmania Shark Gillnet and Shark Hook Sector 130m Depth Commonwealth Closure. Modified from GeoCat 65105 (2007) as per the Southern and Eastern Scalefish and Shark Fishery (Closures) Direction No. 1 2009 - Schedule 14. Produced for the Australian Fisheries Management Authority. Not for public sale or distribution by GA.

Deep seismic reflection profiles collected offshore during a circum-navigation of Tasmania have provided fundamental information on the crustal architecture of the State. In particular, the profiles show the geometry of the boundaries between the major crustal elements, including the offshore continuation of the Arthur Lineament. These crustal element boundaries have apparent dips to the east or southeast and most of them appear to cut through the entire crust to the Moho. In eastern Tasmania, the seismic lines show an old mid-crustal extensional event followed by crustal shortening and duplexing, which probably occurred during the Cambrian-Ordovician Delamerian Orogeny. Thrusts that developed at this time were later reactivated as extensional faults during continental breakup of Pangea in the Cretaceous. Granites off the west coast have the geometry of flat, thin pancakes. In summary, the offshore seismic reflection program around Tasmania has led to a better understanding of the geometry and relationships between the basement elements of Tasmania and younger basins.

The tragic events of the Indian Ocean tsunami on 26 December 2004 highlighted shortcomings in the alert and response systems for tsunami threats to Western Australia's (WA) coastal communities. To improve community awareness and understanding of tsunami hazard and potential impact for Western Australia, the Fire and Emergency Services Authority of WA (FESA) established a collaborative partnership with GA in which science and emergency management expertise was applied to identified communities.

Large areas of prospective North and North-East Queensland have been surveyed by airborne hyperspectral sensor, HyMap, and airborne geophysics as part of the 'Smart' exploration initiative by the Geological Survey of Queensland. In particular, 25000 km2 of hyperspectral mineral and compositional map products, at 4.5 m spatial resolution, have been generated and made available via the internet. In addition, more than 130 ASTER scenes were processed and merged to produce broad scale mapping of mineral groups (Thomas et al, 2008). Province-scale, accurate maps of mineral abundances and minerals chemistries were generated for North Queensland as a result of a 2 year project starting in July 2006 which involved CSIRO Exploration and Mining, the Geological Survey of Queensland (GSQ), Geoscience Australia, James Cook University, and Curtin University. Airborne radiometric data acquired over the same North Queensland Mt Isa - Cloncurry areas as the hyperspectral surveys, had been acquired at flight line spacing of 200 metre. Such geophysical radiometric data provides a useful opportunity to compare the mineral mapping potential of both techniques, for a wide range of geological and vegetated environments. In this study, examples are described of soil mapping within the Tick Hill area, and geological / exploration mapping within the Mt Henry and Suicide Ridge prospects of North Queensland.

At the request of Prime Minister and Cabinet (PM&C), Geoscience Australia (GA) prepared this report for the purposes of informing a National Security paper that highlights potential national security issues associated with climate change.

Map prodiced for Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to illustrate petroleum permits in the shared Australia/Indonesia zone. Produced at the request of DFAT. ***CONFIDENTIAL NOT FOR SALE OR GENERAL RELEASE***

In 1994, the United Nations Regional Cartographic Conference for Asia and the Pacific resolved to establish a Permanent Committee comprising of national surveying and mapping agencies to address the concept of establishing a common geographic information infrastructure for the region. This resolution subsequently led to the establishment of the Permanent Committee for GIS Infrastructure for the Asia and Pacific (PCGIAP). One of the goals of the PCGIAP was to establish and maintain a precise understanding of the relationship between permanent geodetic stations across the region. To this end, campaign-style geodetic-GPS observations, coordinated by Geoscience Australia, have been undertaken throughout the region since 1997. In this presentation, we discuss the development of an Asia Pacific regional reference frame based on the PCGIAP GPS campaign data, which now includes data from 417 non-IGS GPS stations and provides long term crustal deformation estimates for over 200 GPS stations throughout the region. We overview and evaluate: our combination strategy with particular emphasis on the alignment of the solution onto the International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF); the sensitivity of the solution to reference frame site selection; the treatment of regional co-seismic and post-seismic deformation; and the Asia-Pacific contribution to the International Association of Geodesy (IAG) Working Group on "Regional Dense Velocity Fields". The level of consistency of the coordinate estimates with respect to ITRF2005 is 6, 5, 15 mm, in the east, north and up components, respectively, while the velocity estimates are consistent at 2, 2, 6 mm/yr in the east, north and up components, respectively.

250K Topographic Map 2009 Edition 4