Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) web services offer a cost efficient technology that permits transfer of standardised data from distributed sources, removing the need for data to be regularly uploaded to a centralised database. When combined with community defined exchange standards, the OGC services offer a chance to access the latest data from the originating agency and return the data in a consistent format. Interchange and mark-up languages such as the Geography Markup Language (GML) provide standard structures for transferring geospatial information over the web. The IUGS Commission for the Management and Application of Geoscience Information (CGI) has an on-going collaborative project to develop a data model and exchange language based on GML for geological map and borehole data, the GeoScience Mark-up Language (GeoSciML). The Australian Government Geoscience Information Committee (GGIC) has used the GeoSciML model as a basis to cover mineral resources (EarthResourceML), and the Canadian Groundwater Information Network (GIN) has extended GeoSciML into the groundwater domain (GWML). The focus of these activities is to develop geoscience community schema that use globally accepted geospatial web service data exchange standards.

The important role of information management in improving baseline data for natural hazards has been demonstrated through a collaborative pilot project between Geoscience Australia, Mineral Resources Tasmania and the University of Wollongong. The result is a 'virtual' landslide database that makes full use of diverse data across three levels of government and has enabled landslide data to be collated and accessed from a single source. Such a system establishes the foundation for a very powerful and coordinated information resource in Australia and provides a suitable basis for greater investment in data collection. This paper highlights the capacity to extend the methodology across all hazards and describes one solution in facilitating a sound knowledge base on natural disasters and disaster risk reduction.

The recording of continuous waveform data presents different challenges to the recording of event triggered segmented data or to the recording of semi-continuous yet offline data. Many formats in use today derive their origins from the earlier imperatives of such systems. This article will briefly classify such formats so as to better appreciate continuous format requirements. Following this a comparison will be made of continuous formats and the format adopted for use in the Australian National Seismic Network (ANSN). The CD 1 format in detail, its use and adaptation within the ANSN will come after this. Some contextual background on networking will be provided and this will then be wrapped up by a section on where the ANSN may go in the future with CD 1. An appendix is provided to explain data conversion on the GDAS system.

Many of the methods commonly used to calculate gravity anomalies have been around since the beginning of gravity surveying when calculations were done by hand and local horizontal and vertical datums were used. These days computing power is not a concern and most surveys are carried out using GPS technology with global datums. Geoscience Australia is reviewing the methods used to calculate gravity anomalies in the Australian National Gravity Database and is proposing changes such as the use of the GRS80 reference ellipsoid for calculating normal gravity and also as the height datum for anomaly calculations.

The Australian Fundamental Gravity Network defines the datum, Isogal84, for gravity surveys conducted in Australia and the surrounding oceans. It consists of over 900 gravity stations at over 250 locations. Geoscience Australia has conducted measurements with a portable absolute gravity meter at a number of these stations in order to improve the accuracy of this network and to provide a consistent framework for gravity surveyors. These absolute gravity measurements show that Isogal84 is 75 microgals (1 microgal = 1x10-8 m/s2) higher than the absolute datum and that the accuracy of the stations within the network is approximately 30 microgals.

This handbook was first released as BMR Record 1991/29 (Pain et al. 1991). One of the objectives of CRC LEME has been to produce a glossary and classification of regolith terminology, and a second edition of this handbook. The glossary of regolith terminology has already been released in draft form (Eggleton 2000), and this is the second edition of the mapping handbook. We have updated the attribute lists and other details to take account of changes to the RTMAP database structure. We have also changed some definitions to be consistent with the glossary. Otherwise, very little change has been made to the text. The archival RTMAP database resides in the AGSO Corporate Database, in the Oracle Database Management System (see Hazell et al, 1995 for details). Some details, including authority tables, can also be found on the AGSO World Wide Web site, at http://www.agso.gov.au, under Services. There is currently work under way to enable users to enter data from remote locations via the World Wide Web. This facility will be advertised on both the CRC LEME and AGSO web pages when it is available.

part-page item on matters related to the Australian Stratigraphy Commission and the Australian Stratigraphic Units Database. This column explains international connections and reviews several recent relevant articles.

Introduction Geoscience data are being generated at exponentially increasing volumes, and it is no longer feasible to develop centralized warehouses from which data are accessed. Efficient access to such data online in real time from distributed sources is rapidly becoming one of the major challenges in building cyberinfrastructures for the Earth Sciences. EXtensible Markup Language (XML) and web-based data delivery is a proven technology which allows access to standardized data on the fly via the internet. GeoSciML (GeoScience Markup Language) is a geoscience specific, XML-based, GML (Geography Markup Language) application that supports interchange of geoscience information. It has been built from various existing geoscience data model sources, particularly the North American Data Model (NADM) and XMML (eXtensible Mining Markup Language). It is being developed through the Interoperability Working Group of the Commission for the Management and Application of Geoscience Information (CGI), which is a commission of the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS). The Working Group is (currently) comprised of geology and information technology specialists from agencies in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. The GeoSciML Testbed In 2006, representatives from geological surveys in USA, Canada, UK, France, Sweden and Australia came together to develop a testbed that would utilize GeoSciML to access globally distributed geoscience map data (Duffy et al, 2006). Data was served from seven sites in six countries with several different WMS/WFS (Web Feature Service/Web Map Service) software solutions employed. Geological surveys in Canada, USA and Sweden used an ESRI ArcIMS platform (and in one case a MapServer platform) with a Cocoon wrapper to handle queries and transformations of XML documents. The UK and Australian geological surveys employed the open source GeoServer software to serve data from ArcSDE and Oracle sources. The French geological survey implemented a system using an Ionic RedSpider server for WMS and client, and a custom development to implement a WFS. Web clients were constructed in Vancouver, Canada using Phoenix, and later in Canberra, Australia using Moximedia IMF software to test various use case for the WMS/WFS services. Generic web clients, such as Carbon Tools Gaia 2 were also used to test some use cases. In addition to geologic map data, the testbed also demonstrated the capacity to share borehole data as GeoSciML. Two WFS (French and British) provided borehole data to a client able to display the borehole logs.

I am moved to write this article by an apparent lack of understanding by many geologists and managers of the growing importance of geoscience data models and transfer standards. I will try to explain why data models are becoming such a hot topic, why the exploration industry has already spent many millions of dollars on data models and why much more will be spent. The future of exploration companies may ultimately depend on how data models are used.

No abstract available