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Joining Geoscience Australia's Graduate Program is an exciting opportunity to learn about the diverse earth science disciplines work for the nation's leading government geoscience research and information agency. Posters and Flyers.

Joining Geoscience Australia's Graduate Program is an exciting opportunity to learn about the diverse earth science disciplines work for the nation's leading government geoscience research and information agency. Posters and Flyers.

The first RSTT model for Australia has been developed based on the Australian Seismological Reference Model (AuSREM) that was released in late 2012. The densely-gridded P and S wave distributions of the crust and upper mantle of AuSREM have been simplified and translated into the 7 layer crustal and upper mantle RSTT model. Travel times computed with this RSTT model are evaluated against travel times computed in full 3D through the AuSREM model to assess the impact of the approximations used by RSTT. Location estimates of 5 ground truth earthquakes (GT1, GT2 and GT5) using the global ak135 reference model, the RSTT model and the full 3D travel times are compared. It is found that the RSTT model can reproduce the 3D travel times fairly accurately within its distance of applicability, thereby improving location estimates compared to using a global travel time model like ak135. However the benefit of using RSTT for locating Australian earthquakes is far less than using full 3D travel times, mainly because most stations tend to be further away from the source than the distance of RSTT applicability.

The Canning Basin in northwestern Australia covers an area of over 506,000 sq. km, of which 430,000 sq. km are onshore. The maximum sediment thickness is over 15,000 m, concentrated in two north-west trending depocentres: the Fitzroy Trough - Gregory Sub-basin complex and the Willara Sub-basin - Kidson Sub-basin complex. Onshore sediments range in age from the Early Ordovician to Early Cretaceous while those in the offshore portion of the basin are mostly Triassic to Neogene. Though it is largely covered by onshore petroleum tenements, much of the basin is underexplored. Conventional hydrocarbons have been produced from Devonian carbonates (Blina) and Carboniferous sandstones (Boundary, Lloyd, Point Torment, Sundown, West Kora and West Terrace), with many shows in Ordovician to Permian rocks. The recent Ungani-1 well flowed oil from the Laurel Formation, while in 1967 Yulleroo-1 flowed gas from the same unit. The basin's source rocks have recently been attracting exploration attention for their unconventional hydrocarbon resources. Prospective units include the Ordovician Goldwyer and Bongabinni formations, and the Mississippian Laurel Formation. A new International Geological Timescale (Gradstein et al. 2012) has resulted in changes to the age and duration of most chronological stages. This has implications for the interpreted ages and durations of Canning Basin sedimentary units, with potential ramifications for petroleum modelling. This poster presents an updated biozonation and stratigraphy chart for the Canning Basin, reflecting the 2012 timescale. This provides a baseline for an assessment of the unconventional hydrocarbon potential of the basin, which will be conducted by Geoscience Australia.

A satellite image poster that gives a view of the city of Canberra and the surrounding countryside. Derived by merging datasets from the Landsat Thematic Mapper and SPOT satellites which periodically pass over Australia, the poster provides a wealth of information as well as a pleasing visual image.

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Fun facts about Antarctica in an Open Day display poster.

As part of a multidisciplinary study of the region by Geoscience Australia and the geological surveys of New South Wales and Queensland, the mineral systems at the Cuttaburra and F1 prospects have been investigated with the aim of better understanding the prospectivity of the southern Thomson Orogen. Samples from three drill holes at the Cuttaburra prospect and three drill holes at the F1 prospect were studied in detail petrographically and analysed for the following: whole-rock geochemistry; S isotopes; Pb isotopes; molybdenite Re-Os geochronology; cassiterite U-Pb geochronology; and white mica 40Ar/39Ar geochronology. The results have been integrated with existing zircon U-Pb geochronology and company data to better characterise the geology, mineralisation, alteration, timing and geochemistry of the mineral systems. A new two-stage model of mineral system formation has been developed in which early Mo-W and later Au-base metal mineralisation both formed at ~425-430 Ma, probably coevally with granitoids that intruded Cambrian or younger metasedimentary rocks.

Volcanic ash represents a serious hazard to communities living in the vicinity of active volcanoes in developing countries like Indonesia. Geoscience Australia, the Australia-Indonesia Facility for Disaster Reduction (AIFDR) and the Indonesian Centre for Volcanology and Geohazard Mitigation (CVGHM) have adapted an existing open source volcanic ash dispersion model for use in Indonesia. The core model is the widely used volcanic ash dispersion model FALL3D. A python wrapper has been developed, which simplifies the use of FALL3D for those with little or no background in computational modelling. An application example is described here for Gunung Ciremai in West Java, Indonesia. Scenarios were run using eruptive parameters within the acceptable range of possible future events for this volcano, granulometry as determined through field studies and a meteorological dataset that represented a complete range of possible wind conditions expected during the dry and rainy seasons for the region. Implications for varying degrees of hazard associated with volcanic ash ground loading on nearby communities for dry versus rainy season wind conditions is discussed. Communities located on the western side of Gunung Ciremai are highly susceptible to volcanic ash ground loading regardless of the season whereas communities on the eastern side are found to be more susceptible during the rainy season months than during the dry. This is attributed to prevailing wind conditions during the rainy season that include a strong easterly component. These hazard maps can be used for hazard and impact analysis and can help focus mitigation efforts on communities most at risk.