This is a placeholder record only. The product may be released by GA in the future, but at the moment we are only hosting the metadata.

Three data sets containing locational and attribute information for places respectively on the Commonwealth, National, and World Heritage Lists determined by the Australian Government Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities - Heritage Division. Places subject to confidentiality agreements are not included in these data. The Commonwealth Heritage List is a list of natural, Indigenous and historic heritage places owned or controlled by the Australian Government The National Heritage List has been established to list places of outstanding heritage significance to Australia. It includes natural, historic and Indigenous places that are of outstanding national heritage value to the Australian nation. The World Heritage List contains sites selected on the basis of ten cultural and natural criteria under the Convention concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage, adopted by UNESCO in 1972.

In the 2011/12 Budget, the Australian Government announced funding of a four year National CO2 Infrastructure Plan (NCIP) to accelerate the identification and development of suitable long term CO2 storage sites, within reasonable distances of major energy and industrial emission sources. The NCIP funding follows on from funding announced earlier in 2011 from the Carbon Storage Taskforce through the National Carbon Mapping and Infrastructure Plan and previous funding recommended by the former National Low Emissions Coal Council. Four offshore sedimentary basins and several onshore basins have been identified for study and pre-competitive data acquisition.

Severe wind damage accounts for about 40 percent of the total building damage observed in Australia during the 20th century. Climate change has the potential to significantly affect severe wind hazard and the resulting level of loss. W report on a nationally consistent assessment of severe wind hazard across the Australian continent, and also severe wind risk to residential houses (quantified in terms of annualised loss). A computational framework has been developed to quantify both the wind hazard and risk due to severe winds, based on innovative modeling techniques and application of the National Exposure Information System (NEXIS). A combination of tropical cyclone, synoptic and thunderstorm wind hazard estimates is used to provide a revised estimate of the severe wind hazard across Australia. The hazard modeling utilises both 'current climate' information and also simulations forced by IPCC SRES climate change scenarios (employed to estimate how the wind hazard may be influenced by climate change). Our analysis has identified regions where the design wind speed depicted in the Australian/New Zealand Wind Loading Standard (AS/NZS 1170.2, 2010) is lower than 'new' hazard analysis. In considering future climate scenarios, four case study regions are used to illustrate when the wind loading standard may be inadequate, and where retrofitting is indicated as a viable adaptation option at either the present or at a specified future time. The comparison of current and projected future risk, currently only considers direct costs (structural damage to houses) associated with severe wind hazard. A broader assessment methodology is discussed.

Dense coral-sponge communities on the upper continental slope (570 - 950 m) off George V Land, east Antarctica have been identified as Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems. We propose three main factors governing their distribution on this margin: 1) their depth in relation to iceberg scouring; 2) the flow of organic-rich bottom waters; and 3) their location at the head of shelf cutting canyons. Icebergs scour to 500 m in this region and the lack of such disturbance is a likely factor allowing the growth of rich benthic ecosystems. In addition, the richest communities are found in the heads of canyons which receive descending plumes of Antarctic Bottom Water formed on the George V shelf, which could entrain abundant food for the benthos. The canyons harbouring rich benthos are also those that cut the shelf break. Such canyons are known sites of high productivity in other areas due to strong current flow and increased mixing with shelf waters, and the abrupt, complex topography.

Report on operational activities with data, analysis and interpretation for the Gawler - Eucla demonstration study site in South Australia

Tide gauge data forms the basis for determining global or local sea level rise with respect to a global geocentric reference frame. Data from repeated precise levelling connections between the tide gauge and a series of coastal and inland benchmarks, including a Continuous GPS (CGPS) benchmark, is used to determine the stability of tide gauges at 12 locations in the South Pacific. The method for determining this is based on a constant velocity model which minimises the net movement amongst a set of datum benchmarks surveyed since the installation of the tide gauges. Tide gauges were found to be sinking, relative to the CGPS benchmark, in Pohnpei (FSM), Samoa, Vanuatu, Tonga, Nauru, Tuvalu, Fiji and Cook Is; listed in order of the sinking rate, with a maximum of -1.01 - 0.63 mm/yr at Pohnpei (FSM) and a minimum of -0.03 - 0.81mm/yr at Cook Is. The tide gauge was rising, relative to the CGPS benchmark, in Solomon Is, Manus Is (PNG), Kiribati and Marshall Is, with a maximum of 3.12 - 0.49mm/yr in Solomon Is and a minimum of 0.01 - 0.91mm/yr in Marshall Is. However, these estimates are unreliable for the Solomon Is and Marshall Is, which have recently established CGPS benchmarks and have been surveyed less than 3 times. In Tonga and Cook Is, the tide gauge was found to be disturbed or affected by survey errors whereas the Vanuatu results were affected by earthquakes. It was also found that the constant velocity model did not fit the observations at the tide gauges in Tonga, Cook Is, Fiji, Marshall Is and Vanuatu, which had large variations in their velocities. This is an indicator of the high frequency (short period) motion of the tide gauge structure, which cannot be measured by the levelling method since these have a higher frequency than the time interval between levelling surveys.

On the eve of London's Olympic year this title is apt as Australia's first petroleum well in more than 2 km of water is drilled, exploration has pushed to the very margins of the continent and is more widely spread across the onshore basins than at any time since in the early 1980s. In the year 2000, Sydney's Olympic year, Australia had one LNG project exporting 6.9 million tonnes and total energy exports were worth A$25.7 billion including A$7.6 billion for crude oil, A$2.7 billion for LNG and A$10.8 billion for coal. In the intervening decade Australia has asserted itself as the energy powerhouse in the Asian region, LNG exports have nearly tripled, two LNG hubs are in operation and three new LNG projects are under construction. In 2010, the export value of energy commodities included A$11 billion for crude oil, A$9.5 billion for LNG and about A$50 billion for coal.

The Glenloth Granite is an icon of South Australian geology, having been the site of some of the earliest gold workings in the central portion of what is now known as the Gawler Craton and the subject of some of the first radiometric age determinations in the 1960's. The Glenloth Granite forms part of the Neoarchaean to earliest Palaeoproterozoic belt of supracrustals and associated intrusives known as the Mulgathing Complex, which includes mafic to ultramafic (komatiitic) volcanics. Inferred to be syn-tectonic in nature in the original 1:250 000 scale mapping of the region, new SHRIMP data shows that the Glenloth Granite was emplaced at 2508 +/- 2 Ma, during period of magmatism that predates the ca. 2470 - 2420 Ma Sleafordian Orogeny. This orogenic event reworked the Glenloth Granite in to magmatitic gneiss and is responsible for two main generations of metamorphic zircon growth at 2453 +/- 4 Ma and 2427 +/- 3 Ma, likely reflecting initial prograde metamorphism followed by migmatite formation during biotite dehydration reactions, as has been documented from elsewhere in the Mulgathing Complex.

We report on an assessment of severe wind hazard across the Australian continent, and severe wind risk to residential houses (quantified in terms of annualised loss). A computational framework has been developed to quantify both the wind hazard and risk due to severe winds, based on innovative modelling techniques and application of the National Exposure Information System (NEXIS). A combination of tropical cyclone, synoptic and thunderstorm wind hazard estimates is used to provide a revised estimate of the severe wind hazard across Australia. The hazard modelling utilises both 'current-climate information and also simulations forced by IPCC SRES climate change scenarios, which have been employed to determine how the wind hazard will be influenced by climate change. We have also undertaken a national assessment of localised wind speed modifiers including topography, terrain and the built environment (shielding). It is important to account for these effects in assessment of risk as it is the local wind speed that causes damage to structures. The effects of the wind speed modifiers are incorporated through a statistical modification of the regional wind speed. The results from this current climate hazard assessment are compared with the hazard based on the existing understanding as specified in the Australian/New Zealand Wind Loading Standard (AS/NZS 1170.2, 2002). Our analysis has identified regions where the design wind speed depicted in AS/NZS 1170.2 is significantly lower than 'new' hazard analysis. These are regions requiring more immediate attention regarding the development of adaptation options including consideration by the wind loading standards committee for detailed study in the context of the minimum design standards in the current building code regulations.