The Exploring for the Future Southern Stuart Corridor Groundwater Project undertook extensive multidisciplinary geoscientific investigations across four study areas and six Indigenous communities in central Australia to better understand and characterise groundwater resources. The project was developed to support improvements in water resilience for communities and future agricultural developments in the region. Geoscience Australia collected 9800 line kilometres of airborne electromagnetic data, drilled and installed 15 new monitoring bores, acquired 78 surface nuclear magnetic resonance soundings, recorded downhole geophysical data and groundwater level measurements from >50 bores, and completed hydrochemical analysis of 75 samples. Integration of these datasets provided insights into recharge areas and rates, and potential for managed aquifer recharge. The project also improved our understanding of the geological systems hosting groundwater and interconnections between systems. Potential new groundwater supplies, enhanced understanding of groundwater processes and improved geological models will assist water agencies to better manage groundwater resources across the region. <b>Citation:</b> Hostetler, S., Slatter, E., McPherson, A.A., Tan, K.P., McInnes, D. J., Wischusen, J.D.H. and Ellis, J.H., 2020. A multidisciplinary geoscientific approach to support water resilience in communities in Central Australia. In: Czarnota, K., Roach, I., Abbott, S., Haynes, M., Kositcin, N., Ray, A. and Slatter, E. (eds.) Exploring for the Future: Extended Abstracts, Geoscience Australia, Canberra, 1–4.

Publicly available groundwater data have been compiled to provide a common information base to inform environmental, resource development and regulatory decisions in the Galilee Basin region. This web service summarises salinity, water levels, resource size, potential aquifer yield and surface water–groundwater interactions for the Eromanga Basin located within the Galilee Basin region.

Publicly available groundwater data have been compiled to provide a common information base to inform environmental, resource development and regulatory decisions in the Cooper Basin region. This web service summarises salinity, water levels, resource size, potential aquifer yield and surface water–groundwater interactions for the Lake Eyre Basin located within the Cooper Basin region.

Publicly available groundwater data have been compiled to provide a common information base to inform environmental, resource development and regulatory decisions in the Cooper Basin region. This web service summarises salinity and water levels for the Cooper Basin located within the Cooper Basin region.

This Officer Basin dataset contains descriptive attribute information for the areas bounded by the relevant spatial groundwater feature in the associated Hydrogeology Index map. Descriptive topics are grouped into the following themes: Location and administration; Demographics; Physical geography; Surface water; Geology; Hydrogeology; Groundwater; Groundwater management and use; Environment; Land use and industry types; and Scientific stimulus. The Officer Basin is one of Australia's largest intra-cratonic sedimentary basins, spanning approximately 525,000 square kilometres. It contains a thick sedimentary sequence, ranging up to 10,000 m in depth, composed of rocks from the Neoproterozoic to Late Devonian periods. The basin features diverse depositional environments, including marine and non-marine siliclastic and carbonate units, evaporites, and minor volcanic deposits. The Neoproterozoic succession exhibits a range of depositional settings, including pro-delta to shelf, fluvial to shallow marine, lagoonal, glacial, and aeolian systems. The Cambrian to Ordovician sequence reveals evidence of fluvial, shallow marine, aeolian, sabkha to playa, and lacustrine settings. Volcanic rocks occur sporadically within the sequence, like the Cambrian Table Hill Volcanics in WA and the Neoproterozoic Cadlareena Volcanics in SA. The Officer Basin is considered a remnant of the larger Centralian Superbasin that formed during the Neoproterozoic, covering a vast region in central Australia. The Centralian Superbasin formed as a sag basin during the Tonian, accumulating fluvial, marine, and evaporitic sediments, followed by Neoproterozoic glacial deposits. The long-lasting Petermann Orogeny affected the earlier depositional systems, with extensive uplift along the northern margin of the basin leading to deposition of widespread fluvial and marine siliciclastic and carbonate sediments spanning the terminal Proterozoic to Late Cambrian. The Delamerian Orogeny renewed deposition and reactivated existing structures, and promoted extensive basaltic volcanism in the central and western regions of the basin. Later events are a poorly understood stage, though probably involved continued deposition until the Alice Springs Orogeny uplifted the region, terminating sedimentation in the Late Ordovician or Silurian. A suspected Late Devonian extensional event provided space for fluvial siliciclastic sediment deposition in the north-east. Today, the Officer Basin features four distinct structural zones: a marginal overthrust zone along the northern margin, a zone with rupturing by salt diapirs across the main depositional centre, a central thrusted zone, and a broad gently dipping shelf zone that shallows to the south.

This Port Phillip-Westernport Basin dataset contains descriptive attribute information for the areas bounded by the relevant spatial groundwater feature in the associated Hydrogeology Index map. Descriptive topics are grouped into the following themes: Location and administration; Demographics; Physical geography; Surface water; Geology; Hydrogeology; Groundwater; Groundwater management and use; Environment; Land use and industry types; and Scientific stimulus. The Port Phillip and Westernport basins are small, shallow sedimentary basins located in south-central Victoria, formed during the Late Cretaceous rifting of Australia and Antarctica. They share similar stratigraphy with nearby basins. The Port Phillip Basin is bounded by the Selwyn and Rowsley Faults to the east and west, while the Heath Hill Fault marks the eastern boundary of the Westernport Basin. Both basins have pre-Cenozoic basement rocks comprising folded and faulted Paleozoic metasedimentary rocks and granites from the Lachlan Fold Belt. The Port Phillip Basin's stratigraphy includes Maastrichtian to Cenozoic sedimentary units with intercalated volcanic rocks. The main depocentres are the Sorrento Graben, Ballan Graben/Lal Lal Trough, and Parwan Trough. Notable formations are the Yaloak and Werribee formations, with coal-bearing strata and marine sediments. The Westernport Basin has coastal sediments and volcanic deposits from Paleocene to Holocene. It experienced marine transgressions and regressions due to sea-level fluctuations. Fault movements in the late Pliocene and early Pleistocene formed a fault-bounded depression centered on the Koo Wee Rup Plain. The main units are the Childers Formation, Older Volcanics, Yallock Formation, Sherwood Marl, and Baxter Sandstone. Both basins have Quaternary sediments, including Pleistocene eolian sand sequences, Holocene alluvial and paludal clays, and fluvial sediments in valleys and palaeovalleys. The Port Phillip Basin contains distinct phases of terrestrial and marine deposition, while the Westernport Basin has Eocene volcanism and marine sediments. These basins are important geological features in the region, with various formations representing millions of years of geological history.

Across Australia, groundwater is a vital resource that supports and strengthens communities, culture, the environment and numerous industries. Movement of groundwater is complicated, taking place horizontally, vertically and across different timescales from weeks to millions of years. It is affected by changes in climate, human use and geological complexities such as the type, geometry and distribution of rocks. Understanding how all these factors interact is known as a groundwater conceptual model and it is an important first step. This groundwater conceptualisation includes the Cooper Basin and the overlying Eromanga and Lake Eyre basins as well as surface-groundwater interactions. Figure 1 shows the locations of the cross sections used to conceptualise groundwater in the Cooper Basin region. In the Cooper Basin this includes 1 aquifer in the Lake Eyre Basin, 5 aquifers in the Eromanga Basin and 1 aquifer in the Cooper Basin (Wainman et al., 2023a, b). Additional aquifers in the Permian sequence have not been included in this assessment, as they are yet to be fully investigated (Evans et al., 2020). Confidence for each aquifer was calculated for both salinity and water levels (Gouramanis et al., 2023a, b, c). The confidence for each aquifer was added to show the overall confidence for the basin. The level of knowledge across all aquifer is moderate to low. The groundwater conceptualisations summarises the groundwater flow and potential connectivity between aquifers. Figures also show the distribution of the aquifers and aquitards, average salinity, potential aquifer yield and confidence over an area of 50 km along the cross section lines.

Publicly available groundwater data have been compiled to provide a common information base to inform environmental, resource development and regulatory decisions in the Cooper Basin region. This web service summarises salinity, water levels, resource size, potential aquifer yield and surface water–groundwater interactions for the Lake Eyre Basin located within the Cooper Basin region.

This Carnarvon Basin dataset contains descriptive attribute information for the areas bounded by the relevant spatial groundwater feature in the associated Hydrogeology Index map. Descriptive topics are grouped into the following themes: Location and administration; Demographics; Physical geography; Surface water; Geology; Hydrogeology; Groundwater; Groundwater management and use; Environment; Land use and industry types; and Scientific stimulus. The Carnarvon Basin is a large sedimentary basin covering the western and north-western coast of Western Australia, stretching over 1,000 km from Geraldton to Karratha. It is predominantly offshore, with over 80% of the basin located in water depths of up to 4,500 m. The basin is elongated north to south and connects to the Perth Basin in the south and the offshore Canning Basin in the north-east. It is underlain by Precambrian crystalline basement rocks. The Carnarvon Basin consists of two distinct parts. The southern portion comprises onshore sub-basins with mainly Paleozoic sedimentary rocks extending up to 300 km inland, while the northern section consists of offshore sub-basins containing Mesozoic, Cenozoic, and Paleozoic sequences. The geological evolution of the Southern Carnarvon Basin was shaped by multiple extensional episodes related to the breakup of Gondwana and reactivation of Archean and Proterozoic structures. The collision between Australia and Eurasia in the Mid-Miocene caused significant fault reactivation and inversion. The onshore region experienced arid conditions, leading to the formation of calcrete, followed by alluvial and eolian deposition and continued calcareous deposition offshore. The Northern Carnarvon Basin contains up to 15,000 m of sedimentary infill, primarily composed of siliciclastic deltaic to marine sediments from the Triassic to Early Cretaceous and shelf carbonates from the Mid-Cretaceous to Cenozoic. The basin is a significant hydrocarbon province, with most of the resources found within Upper Triassic, Jurassic, and Lower Cretaceous sandstone reservoirs. The basin's development occurred during four successive periods of extension and thermal subsidence, resulting in the formation of various sub-basins and structural highs. Overall, the Carnarvon Basin is a geologically complex region with a rich sedimentary history and significant hydrocarbon resources. Exploration drilling has been ongoing since 1953, with numerous wells drilled to unlock its hydrocarbon potential.

This Clarence-Moreton Basin dataset contains descriptive attribute information for the areas bounded by the relevant spatial groundwater feature in the associated Hydrogeology Index map. Descriptive topics are grouped into the following themes: Location and administration; Demographics; Physical geography; Surface water; Geology; Hydrogeology; Groundwater; Groundwater management and use; Environment; Land use and industry types; and Scientific stimulus. The formation of the Clarence-Moreton Basin initiated during the Middle Triassic due to tectonic extension. This was followed by a prolonged period of thermal cooling and relaxation throughout the Late Triassic to the Cretaceous. Deposition of a non-marine sedimentary succession occurred during this time, with the Clarence-Moreton Basin now estimated to contain a sedimentary thickness of up to 4000 m. There were three main depositional centres within the basin, and these are known as the Cecil Plain Sub-basin, Laidley Sub-basin and Logan Sub-basin. The Clarence-Moreton Basin sediments were originally deposited in non-marine environments by predominantly northward flowing rivers in a relatively humid climate. The sedimentary sequences are dominated by a mixed assemblage of sandstone, siltstone, mudstone, conglomerate and coal. Changing environmental conditions due to various tectonic events resulted in deposition of interbedded sequences of fluvial, paludal (swamp) and lacustrine deposits. Within the Clarence-Moreton Basin, coal has been mined primarily from the Jurassic Walloon Coal Measures, including for the existing mines at Commodore and New Acland. However, coal deposits also occur in other units, such as the Grafton Formation, Orara Formation, Bundamba Group, Ipswich Coal Measures, and Nymboida Coal Measures. Overlying the Clarence-Moreton Basin in various locations are Paleogene and Neogene volcanic rocks, such as the Main Range Volcanics and Lamington Volcanics. The thickness of these volcanic rocks is typically several hundred metres, although the maximum thickness of the Main Range Volcanics is about 900 m. Quaternary sediments including alluvial, colluvial and coastal deposits also occur in places above the older rocks of the Clarence-Moreton Basin.