5 educational posters created for the Sapphire Coast Marine Discovery Centre in Eden on Geomorphology, Geology, Land Use and Type, and Seabed Habitats.

Presentation for the National Science Week 2013, AMOS Seminar "The 2003 Canberra fires - 10 years after: What have we learned" 1-5pm CSIRO Discovery Centre 18 August 2013

3D images and text describing Australia's Southeast Marine Region

Educational factsheet about direct-use of geothermal energy - what it is, why do it, where can it be done, international figures for direct-use of geothermal energy and opportunities for using geothermal energy directly in Australia. Mini-abstract on factsheet as follows: Geothermal energy is a natural source of heat contained within the Earth, and it can be extracted and used either indirectly to generate electricity, or directly for heating applications. There are some examples of geothermal direct-use projects in Australia already and there is significant potential for additional domestic, industrial and commercial applications.

A new National Fleet of Ocean Bottom Seismometers to understand the structures deep beneath the ocean floor and how the continental plates are moving and what resources may lay under the ocean floor.

This set is composed of a selection of geoscience booklets, paper models and an image set - Climate Change booklet - Time and Life Booklet - Volcanoes booklet - Earthquakes booklet - Australian Earthquakes image set - Plate Tectonics booklet - Plate tectonics 3D paper model set Suitable for secondary Year levels 7-12

Australia's Maritime Jurisdiction themed addition to GAV A3 map series commissioned by Communications & Governance Section for educational purposes. Not for sale or general release.

Spatial distribution of sponge species richness and its relationship with environmental variables are important for the informed monitoring of ecosystem health and marine environmental management and conservation within the Oceanic Shoals Commonwealth Marine Reserve, in the Timor Sea region, northern Australia. However, the spatially continuous data of sponge species richness is not readily available, and the relationship is largely unknown. In this study, we modelled sponge species richness data of 77 samples using random forest (RF) and generalised linear model (glm) and their hybrid methods with geostatistical techniques (i.e. ordinary kriging (OK) and inverse distance weighting (IDW)) based on seabed biophysical variables. These methods are RF, RFOK, RFIDW, glm, glmok and glmidw that is a new hybrid method. We also examined effects of model averaging using four averaged methods (RFOKRFIDW, RFRFOKRFIDW, glmokglmidw and glmglmokglmidw) and the effects of various predictor sets on the accuracy of predictive models. Four feature selection methods, 1) averaged variable importance (AVI), 2) Boruta, 3) knowledge informed AVI (KIAVI) and 4) recursive feature selection (rfe), were used for RF; and four variable selection methods: 1) stepAIC, 2) dropterm, 3) anova and 4) RF, were employed to select glm predictive models. Predictive models were validated based on 10-fold cross validation. Finally the spatial distribution of sponge richness was predicted using the most accurate model and examined. The main findings are 1) the initial input predictors affect the status of important and unimportant variables; 2) AVI is not always reliable and KIAVI is recommended for selecting RF predictive model, 3) using Boruta can improve the accuracy in comparison with the full model, but it may lead to sub-optimal models; and features selected using rfe are not optimal and can be even misleading; 4) the accuracy of glm predictive model did not align with AIC, deviance explained (%) and deviance explained adjusted (%), suggesting that conventional model selection approaches for glm is unable to identify reliable predictive models; 5) joint application of RF and AIC is a useful model selection approach for developing glm predictive models; 6) the goodness of fit should not be used to assess glm predictive models; 7) the hybrid methods have significantly improved the predictive accuracy for both RF and glm; and the hybrid methods of RF and geostatistical methods are considerably more accurate and able to effectively model count data; and 8) the relationships of sponge species richness with the predictors are non-linear, and high sponge species richness is usually associated with hard seabed features. This study further confirms that: 1) the initial input predictors affect the model selection for RF; 2) the inclusion of highly correlated predictors could improve predictive accuracy, providing important guideline for pre-selecting predictors for RF; and 3) the effects of model averaging are method dependent or even data dependent. This study also provides important information for future monitoring design, particularly on the areas where the management and conservation of sponge gardens should be focused.

The Map Reading Guide is an ideal resource for a wide range of map users and is an excellent and simplistic introduction to topographic maps which are suitable for anyone with an interest in maps. It contains: - an explanation of what is a topographic map - steps on how to read topographic maps, including explanations of map scale and how to use a map scale to calculate distance - the differences between grid north, true north and magnetic north - an explanation of symbols used on topographic map symbols - how hills and mountains are shown on maps using relief shading, hypsometric tinting, and contours - what a datum is and why there are different datum - explanations of the difference between geographic and grid coordinates - how to quote grid references from topographic maps - how to plan a successful trip using topographic maps - using Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers and magnetic compasses with topographic maps - using a topographic map to find your current position and to set a course. This product is the guide/map roamer card combination.

This advanced earthquake location and magnitude classroom activity is based on real data from the 2004 earthquake off Banda Aceh on the Indonesian Island of Sumatra. Extension exercises and teacher answer provided.