This record gives a brief account of the conditions encountered in a geological reconnaissance of the south-western portion of the Canning Basin - an area covered mostly by sand and seif dune, interspersed by scattered low rock outcrops.

At the end of 1945 the area dredged by the Bulolo Gold Dredging Co. Ltd. was 831 hectares. At that time 307 hectares remained to be dredged and of this 227 hectares contained soil which has been shown by soil analysis to be reasonably good. Resoiling would not be practicable on about 70 hectares of this area, as the Company plans to dredge this section twice, first with shallow and then with deep-digging dredges. Similar soil exists on 3-400 hectares classified previously by the Company as marginal ground, but which, since the increase in the Australian price of gold, is now probably quite profitable. This makes the total area that might be suitable for resoiling about 500 hectares compared to 1,281 hectares that either has been dredged or to which for other reasons resoiling is not applicable. Revenue to the Administration from the gold produced at Bulolo is over £1,000 per hectare from royalty alone and as most of the area has now been worked it seems questionable whether resoiling is worth further consideration at this stage. No provision was made for resoiling in the terms of the original mining tenements, but the Company's officials have expressed willingness to co-operate in carrying out the wishes of the administration. It has been considered impracticable now to resoil the areas that have been dredged or to rebuild the existing dredges for mechanical resoiling, but if the Department of Internal Territories considers that the matter should be pursued further, the Company might be asked to consider removing soil from the dredge path by bulldozer or other mechanical means and replacing the soil on the flattened out tailings after the dredge has passed; also to provide details of the economics of carrying out a similar scheme on the areas in which values were previously considered to be marginal.

As part of a continuing program to date Permian plant microfossil zones using CA-IDTIMS dating, 11 tuff and 18 sedimentary core samples were examined from the Bowen Basin succession intersected in APLNG Meeleebee 5, a CSG well spudded in the Surat Basin, Queensland. The Bowen Basin consists of terrestrial and marine sediments interspersed with numerous tuff layers and economic coal seams. Palynological strew-slides were examined using a light microscope to identify taxa. Quantitative analyses, with counts up to 100 specimens, were undertaken. Almost all the plant microfossil assemblages analysed from the Meeleebee 5 core belong to the Price (1997) APP5 spore-pollen zone, and one may belong to the younger APP6 zone. The APP5 index species, Dulhuntyispora parvithola was present throughout the section. The APP5005 index species Microreticulatisporites bitriangularis was also present in many samples and the Micrhystridium evansii acme event was readily identified. Triquitrites proratus, a species usually restricted to APP6, was identified near the top of the succession, although no other species typical of APP6 were found. When compared with CA-IDTIMS tuff ages, the Dulhuntyispora parvithola zone spans around five million years, almost extending to the Permian-Triassic boundary. Additionally, the Microreticulatisporites bitriangularis Subzone and Microstridium evansii event are both younger than previously estimated. By combining the results of the palynology and CA-IDTIMS dating, numeric ages are attached to palynostratigraphic units, aiding regional and global correlations of the palynofloras and economic coal-bearing sequences of the basin.

The development of climate change adaptation policies must be underpinned by a sound understanding of climate change risk. As part of the Hyogo Framework for Action, governments have agreed to incorporate climate change adaptation into the risk reduction process. This paper explores the nature of climate change risk assessment in the context of human assets and the built environment. More specifically, the paper's focus is on the role of spatial data which is fundamental to the analysis. The fundamental link in all of these examples is the National Exposure Information System (NEXIS) which has been developed as a national database of Australia's built infrastructure and associated demographic information. The first illustrations of the use of NEXIS are through post-disaster impact assessments of a recent flood and bushfire. While these specific events can not be said to be the result of climate change, flood and bushfire risks will certainly increase if rainfall or drought become more prevalent, as most climate change models indicate. The second example is from Australia's National Coastal Vulnerability Assessment which is addressing the impact of sea-level rise and increased storms on coastal communities on a national scale. This study required access to or the development of several other spatial databases covering coastal landforms, digital elevation models and tidal/storm surge. Together, these examples serve to illustrate the importance of spatial data to the assessment of climate change risk and, ultimately, to making informed, cost-effective decisions to adapt to climate change.

Physical sedimentological processes such as the mobilisation and transport of shelf sediments during extreme storm events give rise to disturbances that characterise many shelf ecosystems. The intermediate disturbance hypothesis predicts that biodiversity is controlled by the frequency of disturbance events, their spatial extent and the amount of time required for ecological succession. A review of available literature suggests that periods of ecological succession in shelf environments range from 1 to over 10 years. Physical sedimentological processes operating on continental shelves having this same return frequency include synoptic storms, eddies shed from intruding ocean currents and extreme storm events (cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes). Modelling studies that characterise the Australian continental shelf in terms of bed stress due to tides, waves and ocean currents were used here to create a map of ecological disturbance, defined as occurring when the Shield's parameter exceeds a threshold of 0.25. We also define a dimensionless ecological disturbance ratio (ED) as the rate of ecological succession divided by the recurrence interval of disturbance events. The results illustrate that on the outer part of Australia's southern, wave-dominated shelf the mean number of days between threshold events that the Shield's parameter exceeds 0.25 is several hundred days.

A soil geochemical dataset (major and minor elements) is provided for NE-Brazil, based on low-density sampling. It covers an area from about 2°S to 12°S, and from 34°W to 49°W (ca. 1.7 million km2), and includes top (TOP: 0-20 cm) and bottom (BOT: 30-50 cm) mineral soil materials. Results are put in perspective using two recent and comparable studies, the National Geochemical Survey of Australia (NGSA) and the European Geochemical Mapping of Agricultural Soils (GEMAS). Cluster analysis revealed similar results for TOP and BOT samples, yielding three groups of elements/oxides displaying similar behaviour: Gr.1 comprising Al2O3, Fe2O3, TiO2, and P2O5; Gr.2 comprising CaO, K2O, MgO, MnO, and Na2O; and Gr.3 being SiO2. All median element concentrations in the Brazilian samples are depleted compared to World Soil Averages (WSA), except for Al2O3 and SiO2, which are respectively similar to WSA and enriched in Brazil. While this depletion is moderate for Fe2O3, MnO, P2O5, and TiO2, it reaches an order of magnitude and more for K2O, MgO, CaO, and Na2O. The difference between TOP and BOT concentrations is lower than the variation of either TOP or BOT concentrations between sample sites. Similar spatial distribution and the high correlation between TOP and BOT concentrations suggest that (1) similar processes and parameters are of general relevance for the geochemical composition of TOP and BOT samples, and (2) topsoil and subsoil in the investigation area are not decoupled. Weathering indicators are significantly and positively correlated and show similar spatial distributions in TOP and BOT samples. All elements deliver similar mass removal times (time to export all material from a 10 cm soil layer) and clearly discern between the regions: Europe with the fastest "depletion" (12,200 ± 300 years), followed by Australia (33,200 ± 3,000 years) and Brazil (86,700 ± 3,000 years). Similar results emerge when calculating denudation rates, using independent fluvial .../...

From 1995 to 2000 information from the federal and state governments was compiled for Comprehensive Regional Assessments (CRA), which formed the basis for Regional Forest Agreements (RFA) that identified areas for conservation to meet targets agreed by the Commonwealth Government with the United Nations. This CD was created as part of GA's contribution to the Central Highlands CRA. It contains final versions of all data coverages and shapefiles used in the project, Published Graphics files in ArcInfo (.gra), postscript (.ps) and Web ready (.gif) formats, all Geophysical Images and Landsat data and final versions of documents provided for publishing.

This dataset contains species identifications of echinoderms collected during survey SOL4934 (R.V. Solander, 27 August - 24 September, 2009). Animals were collected from the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf with a Smith-McIntyre grab and benthic sleds. Echinoderm specimens were lodged at Museum of Victoria on the 12 February 2010 and Ophiuroid samples were lodged on the 19 April 2010. Species-level identifications were undertaken by Tim O'Hara at the Museum of Victoria and were delivered to Geoscience Australia on the 18 May 2010. See GA Record 2010/09 for further details on survey methods and specimen acquisition. Data is presented here exactly as delivered by the taxonomist, and Geoscience Australia is unable to verify the accuracy of the taxonomic identifications.

This dataset contains species identifications of crinoids collected during survey SOL5117 (R.V. Solander, 30 July - 27 August, 2010). Animals were collected from the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf with a benthic sled. Specimens were lodged at Museum of Victoria on the 27 August 2010. Species-level identifications were undertaken by Kate Naughton at the Museum of Victoria and were delivered to Geoscience Australia in December 2011. See GA Record 2011/08 for further details on survey methods and specimen acquisition. Data is presented here exactly as delivered by the taxonomist, and Geoscience Australia is unable to verify the accuracy of the taxonomic identifications.

This chapter presents a broad synthesis and overview based on the 57 case studies included in Part 2 of this book, and on questionnaires completed by the authors. The case studies covered areas of seafloor ranging from 0.15 to over 1,000,000 km2 (average of 26,600 km2) and a broad range of geomorphic feature types. The mean depths of the study areas ranged from 8 to 2,375 m, with about half of the studies on the shelf (depth <120 m) and half on the slope and at greater depths. Mapping resolution ranged from 0.1 to 170 m (mean of 13 m). There is a relatively equal distribution of studies among the four naturalness categories: near-pristine (n=17), largely unmodified (n = 16), modified (n=13) and extensively modified (n=10). In terms of threats to habitats, most authors identified fishing (n=46) as the most significant threat, followed by pollution (n=12), oil and gas development (n=7) and aggregate mining (n=7). Anthropogenic climate change was viewed as an immediate threat to benthic habitats by only three authors (n=3). Water depth was found to be the most useful surrogate for benthic communities in the most studies (n=17), followed by substrate/sediment type (n=14), acoustic backscatter (n=12), wave-current exposure (n=10), grain size (n=10), seabed rugosity (n=9) and BPI/TPI (n=8). Water properties (temperature, salinity) and seabed slope are less useful surrogates. A range of analytical methods were used to identify surrogates, with ARC GIS being by far the most popular method (23 out of 44 studies that specified a methodology).