Geoscience Australia's involvement in Antarctica has primarily been focused on the maintenance and enhancement of geodetic infrastructure within the Australian Antarctic Territory (AAT). Such infrastructure provides a fundamental reference frame for the region and supports earth monitoring science applications on local, regional and continental scales. These foundations have furthered the development of geodesy throughout the continent and provided information on the contemporary motion of the Antarctic plate for comparison with long-term geological records. Primary Antarctic geodetic control also contributes to a greater understanding of global earth movement though contribution to the International Terrestrial Reference Frame solutions. This report focuses on the field work undertaken during the 2010/11 Antarctic summer by Geoscience Australia surveyors at the Davis, Mawson and Macquarie Island research stations, as well as several remote sites in Eastern Antarctica. At each of the research stations, upgrades and local monitoring surveys were performed at the continuously operating reference stations (CORS), which form part of the Australian Regional GNSS Network and also contribute to the International GNSS Service. Remote GPS sites in the Grove Mountains, Bunger Hills, Wilson Bluff and Mt Creswell were also visited for equipment upgrades and data retrieval. Additional surveys were undertaken directed at enhancing the spatial infrastructure around both the Larsemann and Vestfold Hills. Support was also provided to a number of different Australian Antarctic Division projects.

This paper develops a crustal model of the conjugate, oblique-slip continental margins of George V Land, east Antarctica, and the Otway Basin, southeast Australia, based on the interpretation of seismic and sample data.

The 2000-2001 Antarctic Geodesy Summer Program consisted of a number of distinct components including - ARGN reference mark surveys and Orthometric height connections at Mawson and Davis. This report details the work completed in the 2000-2001 summer season, by AUSLIG (now Geoscience Australia) geodetic surveyors between November 2000 and March 2001.

The Rayner Complex of East Antarctica is exposed between 45??80?E in the Enderby Land through Princes Elizabeth Land sector of East Antarctica. It is known to correlate with parts of present day India and to have been deformed and metamorphosed at high grades in the earliest Neoproterozoic (990-900 Ma). The age and origin of the protolith rocks of the Rayner Complex however remains largely unknown, as does the tectonic setting in which these rocks formed. New age data collected from the northern Prince Charles Mountains (eastern Rayner Complex), demonstrate that the pre-orogenic rocks from this region consist of: (1) volcanogenic and terrigenous sediments deposited between 1400 Ma and 1020 Ma in a magmatically active basin characterised by limited input from cratonic sources and, (2) probable syn-sedimentary granitoids dated to 1150 Ma. Our data confirm the continuity of the Rayner Complex into Prydz Bay, a region that preserves a remarkably similar geologic history but which is often differentiated from the Rayner Complex on the basis of a higher grade early Cambrian (~520 Ma) overprint. On the basis of our data we further conclude that the Rayner Complex protoliths likely in formed in a back-arc system that existed along the margin of the pre-Gondwana Indian craton. Anticlockwise P-T paths and high-T, low-P metamorphism associated with the inversion of the Rayner back-arc (990-900 Ma) suggest this event resulted from the accretion of a number of independent microplates, rather than continent-continent collision.

The Antarctic field notebooks contain the geological observations recorded by Bureau of Mineral Resources geologists during their trips to Antarctica between 1948 – 1980s. Files include a scanned copy of the original handwritten field notebook, transcription of the notebook’s contents transcribed by volunteers and validated by an experienced geologist, and a csv file of the transcription with Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) tags. The original Antarctic field notebooks are held at the N.H. (Doc) Fisher Geoscience Library at Geoscience Australia, Canberra.

This paper presents tectonic elements maps for the continental margin of East Antarctica, from 38-164E, together with brief descriptions of all the major tectonic elements.

The Antarctic field notebooks contain the geological observations recorded by Bureau of Mineral Resources geologists during their trips to Antarctica between 1948 – 1980s. Files include a scanned copy of the original handwritten field notebook, transcription of the notebook’s contents transcribed by volunteers and validated by an experienced geologist, and a csv file of the transcription with Text Encoding Initiative (TEI) tags. The original Antarctic field notebooks are held at the N.H. (Doc) Fisher Geoscience Library at Geoscience Australia, Canberra.

<p>Geomagnetic and meteorological observations of the Antarctic 1898-1900 in 2 parts. <p>Part 1: Magnetic observations taken by Louis Bernacchi and W. Colbeck, reduced by Charles Chree with the assistance of Louis Bernacchi; <p>Part 2: Meteorological observations taken by the staff of the "Southern Cross" including Herlof Klovstad, Nicolas Hanson, H. Evans, A. Tongner, L. Bernacchi and W. Colbeck reduced under the superintendence of W.N. Shaw with an introduction and notes by L. Bernacchi.

Two sediment cores collected from beneath the Amery Ice Shelf, East Antarctica describe the physical sedimentation patterns beneath an existing major embayed ice shelf. The latest core, AM01b, was collected from a site of basal freezing, contrasting with the previous core AM02, collected from a site of basal melting. Both cores comprise Holocene siliceous muddy ooze (SMO) however AM01b recovered interbedded siliciclastic mud, sand and gravel with inclined bedding in its lower 27 cm. This interval indicates an episode of variable but strong current activity before SMO sedimentation became dominant. 14C ages corrected for old surface ages are consistent with previous dating of marine sediments in Prydz Bay however the basal age of the AM01b core of 28250 +/- 230 14C yr BP probably results from greater contamination by recycled organic matter. Lithology, 14C surface ages, absolute diatom abundance, and the diatom assemblage are used as indicators of sediment transport pathways beneath the ice shelf. The transport pathways suggested from these indicators do not correspond to previous models of the basal melt/freeze pattern. This indicates that the overturning baroclinic circulation beneath the Amery Ice Shelf (near-bed inflow - surface outflow) is a more important influence on basal melt/freeze and sediment distributions than the barotropic circulation that produces inflow in the east and outflow in the west of the ice front. Localised topographic (ice draft and bed elevation) variations are likely to play a dominant role in the resulting sub-ice-shelf melt and sediment distribution. The inflow of marine sediments in the Holocene section of AM01b, as shown by the abundance of marine diatoms and other planktonic organisms, supports a diverse filter feeder community beneath the ice shelf through the supply of suspended organic matter and oxygen.

We analyse 11 years data from nine continuous GPS receivers distributed over Antarctica to determine vertical crustal motion. The vertical velocities determined by GPS in the latest reference frame IGS05 (a realization of the reference frame ITRF2005) are transformed to the reference frame CE2007 (Argus 2007 GJI) as the centre of mass of the Earth is constrained poorly by SLR in ITRF2005. Uncertainties of the vertical velocities are estimated using combined white and flicker models. Two GPS stations O'Higgins and Palmer in the north Antarctic Peninsula, show uplifts of +6.7 2.4 mm/yr and +5.4 1.7 mm/yr respectively. GPS station Vesleskarvet in Queen Maud Land shows uplift of +1.7 0.8 mm/yr. Recent GRACE research shows ice loss rates of -28.8 7.9 km /yr in the north Antarctic Peninsula and -16.7 9.7 km /yr in Queen Maud Land. The GPS station Casey shows uplift of +1.3 0.7 mm/yr where some ice loss is also indicated by GRACE data. Therefore, the signs of the results from GPS are consistent with the signs of results from GRACE. On the other hand, subsidence of -0.7 0.4 mm/yr is detected at GPS stations Mawson and Davis in East Antarctica where a mass accumulation rate of +21 11 km /yr has been detected by GRACE data. The signs of these results from GPS and GRACE are also consistent. In addition, no significant vertical crustal changes have been detected at GPS stations Dumont d'Urville and McMurdo where no significant mass changes have been detected from GRACE data. We conclude that our GPS analysis results can detect crustal vertical motion very accurately and the signs of GPS results are consistent with the signs of mass changes in Antarctica detected by GRACE.