Australia remains underexplored or unexplored, boasting discovery potential in the mineral, groundwater, and energy resources hidden beneath the surface. These “greenfield” areas are key to Australia’s future prosperity and sustainability. Led by Geoscience Australia, Australia’s national government geoscience organisation, the Exploring for the Future program was a groundbreaking mission to map Australia’s mineral, energy, and groundwater systems in unparalleled scale and detail. The program has advanced our understanding of Australia’s untapped potential. Over the course of 8 years, the Exploring for the Future program provided a significant expansion of public, precompetitive geoscience data and information, equipping decision-makers with the knowledge and tools to tackle urgent challenges related to Australia’s resource prosperity, energy security, and groundwater supply.

The Exploring for the Future program Showcase 2023 was held on 15-17 August 2023. Day 2 - 16th August talks included: Highways to Discovery and Understanding Session AusAEM - Unraveling Australia's Landscape with Airborne Electromagnetics – Dr Yusen Ley Cooper Exploring for the Future Data Discovery Portal: A scenic tour – Simon van der Wielen Towards equitable access to regional geoscience information– Dr Kathryn Waltenberg Community engagement and geoscience knowledge sharing: towards inclusive national data and knowledge provision – Dr Meredith Orr Foundational Geoscience Session The power of national scale geological mapping – Dr Eloise Beyer New surface mineralogical and geochemical maps of Australia – Dr Patrice de Caritat Imaging Australia’s Lithospheric Architecture – Dr Babak Hejrani Metallogenic Potential of the Delamerian Margin– Dr Yanbo Cheng You can access the recording of the talks from YouTube here: <a href="https://youtu.be/ZPp2sv2nuXI">2023 Showcase Day 2 - Part 1</a> <a href="https://youtu.be/dvqP8Z5yVtY">2023 Showcase Day 2 - Part 2</a>

The Exploring for the Future program Showcase 2023 was held on 15-17 August 2023. Day 1 - 15th August talks included: Resourcing net zero – Dr Andrew Heap Our Geoscience Journey – Dr Karol Czarnota You can access the recording of the talks from YouTube here: <a href="https://youtu.be/uWMZBg4IK3g">2023 Showcase Day 1</a>

Australia is the driest inhabited continent on Earth, and groundwater is crucial to supporting many urban and rural communities, economic activities and environmental values. Geoscience Australia, the nation’s trusted advisor on Earth Science, is renewing a deliberate focus on national-scale hydrogeological challenges within the Exploring for the Future program. This will be accomplished by building upon Geoscience Australia’s historic legacy in groundwater studies, including the development of the 1987 national hydrogeological map. Updating the extents, data and scientific understanding of the regions depicted in this map, and bringing it into a version suitable for access and use in the 21st century, will address many limitations of the existing map and its accompanying knowledge base. This compilation of information on Australia’s major hydrogeological regions, including both geospatial analyses of national datasets and high-level summaries of scientific literature, provides for a clear and consistent synthesis of hydrogeological and related contextual information. Supporting the delivery of the National Water Initiative and National Groundwater Strategic Framework, the inventory will benefit multi-sector water users (agriculture, communities, industry and tourism) and the environment. This work will also directly assist prioritisation and decision-making for future investment, and focus groundwater research in the work programs of Geoscience Australia and potentially inform national hydrogeological research more broadly. <b>Citation: </b>Lewis S. J., Lai E. C. S., Flower C. & Lester J. E., 2022. Towards a national information inventory of Australia’s major hydrogeological regions. In: Czarnota, K (ed.) Exploring for the Future: Extended Abstracts, Geoscience Australia, Canberra, https://dx.doi.org/10.26186/146974

A compilation of thematic summaries of 42 Australian Groundwater Provinces. These consistently compiled 42 summaries comprise the National Hydrogeological Inventory. The layer provides the polygons for each groundwater province in the inventory and thematic information for each province, including location and administration information, demographics, physical geography, surface water, geology, hydrogeology, groundwater, groundwater management and use, environment, land use and industry types and scientific stimulus.

<div>The Exploring for the Future program, led by Geoscience Australia, was a $225 million Australian Government investment over 8 years, focused on revealing Australia’s mineral, energy, and groundwater potential by characterising geology.&nbsp;&nbsp;This report provides an overview of activities, results, achievements and impacts from the Exploring for the Future program, with a particular focus on the last four years (2020-2024). &nbsp;</div>

<div><strong>Output Type: </strong> Exploring for the Future Extended Abstract</div><div><br></div><div><strong>Short Abstract: </strong>Geoscience Australia and the Bureau of Meteorology manage national groundwater datasets and hydrogeological information. To continue building common, trusted and nationally consistent datasets, Geoscience Australia and the Bureau of Meteorology collaborated with state and territory jurisdictions as part of the National Groundwater Systems Project. The National Groundwater Systems Project has developed new national scale datasets to refine the understanding of groundwater systems and improve data standards and workflows of groundwater assessment. The collaboration assessed the currency and availability of national groundwater data, while ensuring consistency between national and state/territory government datasets. The updates include aligning the Bureau’s National Aquifer Framework and the National Groundwater Information System with current geological understanding and Geoscience Australia’s Australian Stratigraphic Units Database. Through collaboration, we also conducted a comprehensive review of dataset differences held by each organisation, from groundwater provinces to aquifer boundaries. This, with outcomes from stakeholder engagement with each jurisdiction, led to proposed data alignments and further development of priorities for future work programs. Together Geoscience Australia and the Bureau of Meteorology have improved dataset alignments, such as dynamically linking the National Aquifer Framework and National Groundwater Information System with the Australian Stratigraphic Units Database such that they synchronously update if changes are made. This enhances their accuracy, consistency, and use across the groundwater community and beyond. Further linkages will need to be developed to increase the use of national hydrogeological datasets, bringing mutual benefits to stakeholders and the broader groundwater community in Australia. This work supports the delivery of the Australian Government’s National Groundwater Strategic Framework.</div><div><br></div><div><strong>Citation: </strong>Rollet, N., Nation, E., Harrison, A., Northey, J., Peljo, M., Bishop, C., Boronkay, A., Ahmad, Z., Vizy, J., Lewis, S., Sundaram, B., Carey, H., Zhang, S., Thiele, Z., Hostetler, S., Brooks, M. &amp; Wethasinghe, C., 2024. Collaborating to update and align national groundwater datasets. In: Czarnota, K. (ed.) Exploring for the Future: Extended Abstracts. Geoscience Australia, Canberra. https://doi.org/10.26186/149291</div>

<div>As part of the Exploring for the Future (EFTF) programme, the groundwater team undertook an in-depth investigation into characterising surface water -- groundwater interaction in the Cooper Creek floodplain using airborne electromagnetics (AEM). This work is to be released as part of the Lake Eyre Basin detailed inventory and as an EFTF extended abstract. As part of Geoscience Australia's commitment to transparent science, the scientific workflows that underpinned a large component of this investigation are to be released as a jupyter notebook. This notebook contains python code, figures and explanatory text that the reader can use to understand how the AEM data were processed, visualised, integrated with other data and interpreted.</div>

<div>This dataset presents results of a first iteration of a 3D geological model across the Georgina Basin, Beetaloo Sub-basin of the greater McArthur Basin and South Nicholson Basin (Figure 1), completed as part of Geoscience Australia’s Exploring for the Future Program National Groundwater Systems (NGS) Project. These basins are located in a poorly exposed area between the prospective Mt Isa Province in western Queensland, the Warramunga Province in the Northern Territory, and the southern McArthur Basin to the north. These surrounding regions host major base metal or gold deposits, contain units prospective for energy resources, and hold significant groundwater resources. The Georgina Basin has the greatest potential for groundwater.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>Geoscience Australia’s Exploring for the Future program provides precompetitive information to inform decision-making by government, community and industry on the sustainable development of Australia's mineral, energy and groundwater resources. By gathering, analysing and interpreting new and existing precompetitive geoscience data and knowledge, we are building a national picture of Australia’s geology and resource potential. This leads to a strong economy, resilient society and sustainable environment for the benefit of all Australians. This includes supporting Australia’s transition to net zero emissions, strong, sustainable resources and agriculture sectors, and economic opportunities and social benefits for Australia’s regional and remote communities. The Exploring for the Future program, which commenced in 2016, is an eight year, $225m investment by the Australian Government. More information is available at http://www.ga.gov.au/eftf and https://www.eftf.ga.gov.au/national-groundwater-systems.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>This model builds on the work undertaken in regional projects across energy, minerals and groundwater aspects in a collection of data and interpretation completed from the first and second phases of the EFTF program. The geological and geophysical knowledge gathered for energy and minerals projects is used to refine understanding of groundwater systems in the region.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>In this study, we integrated interpretation of a subset of new regional-scale data, which include ~1,900 km of deep seismic reflection data and 60,000 line kilometres of AusAEM1 airborne electromagnetic survey, supplemented with stratigraphic interpretation from new drill holes undertaken as part of the National Drilling Initiative and review of legacy borehole information (Figure 2). A consistent chronostratigraphic framework (Figure 3) is used to collate the information in a 3D model allowing visualisation of stacked Cenozoic Karumba Basin, Mesozoic Carpentaria Basin, Neoproterozoic to Paleozoic Georgina Basin, Mesoproterozoic Roper Superbasin (including South Nicholson Basin and Beetaloo Sub-basin of the southern McArthur Basin), Paleoproterozoic Isa, Calvert and Leichhardt superbasins (including the pre-Mesoproterozoic stratigraphy of the southern McArthur Basin) and their potential connectivity. The 3D geological model (Figure 4) is used to inform the basin architecture that underpins groundwater conceptual models in the region, constrain aquifer attribution and groundwater flow divides. This interpretation refines a semi-continental geological framework, as input to national coverage databases and informs decision-making for exploration, groundwater resource management and resource impact assessments.</div><div><br></div><div>This metadata document is associated with a data package including:</div><div>·&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Nine surfaces (Table 1): 1-Digital elevation Model (Whiteway, 2009), 2-Base Cenozoic, 3-Base Mesozoic, 4-Base Neoproterozoic, 5-Base Roper Superbasin, 6-Base Isa Superbasin, 7-Base Calvert Superbasin, 8-Base Leichhardt Superbasin and 9-Basement.</div><div>·&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Eight isochores (Table 4): 1-Cenozoic sediments (Karumba Basin), 2-Mesozoic sediments (Carpentaria and Eromanga basins), 3-Paleozoic and Neoproterozoic sediments (Georgina Basin), 4-Mesoproterozoic sediments (Roper Superbasin including South Nicholson Basin and Beetaloo Sub-basin), 5-Paleoproterozoic Isa Superbasin, 6-Paleoproterozoic Calvert Superbasin, 7-Paleoproterozoic Leichhardt Superbasin and 8-Undifferentiated Paleoproterozoic above basement.</div><div>·&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Five confidence maps (Table 5) on the following stratigraphic surfaces: 1-Base Cenozoic sediments, 2-Base Mesozoic, 3-Base Neoproterozoic, 4-Base Roper Superbasin and 5-Combination of Base Isa Superbasin/Base Calvert Superbasin/Base Leichhardt Superbasin/Basement.</div><div>·&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Three section examples (Figure 4) with associated locations.</div><div>Two videos showing section profiles through the model in E-W and N-S orientation.</div>

<div><strong>Output Type: </strong>Exploring for the Future Extended Abstract</div><div><br></div><div><strong>Short Abstract: </strong>Australia's Great Artesian Basin (GAB) is a vital groundwater system extending across parts of Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, and the Northern Territory, crucial for community water supplies, economic development, indigenous cultural values and groundwater dependent ecosystems. Managing GAB groundwater poses challenges due to the complex structure of the sedimentary basin, requiring a better understanding of aquifers, aquitards, and hydraulic connections at a whole GAB scale. Additionally, inconsistencies in nomenclature and subdivisions across the basin further complicate the definition and description of these strata. This study employs an integrated basin analysis workflow using new and existing data to create a 3D geological model tied to a consistent chronostratigraphic framework and State and Territory hydrostratigraphic classifications. The model refines the characteristics of 18 hydrogeological units, offering insights into aquifer boundaries and connectivity. This comprehensive approach enhances the 'whole-of-Basin' subsurface geological understanding, benefiting groundwater management, resource assessments, uncertainty risk assessment and environmental impact assessments across multiple jurisdictions and the broader resource sector (e.g., Carbone Capture and Storage and hydrogen).</div><div><br></div><div><strong>Citation: </strong>Rollet, N., Vizy, J., Norton, C.J., Hannaford, C., McPherson, A., Symington, N., Evans, T., Bradshaw, B., Szczepaniak, M., Bui Xuan Hy, A., Schoning, G. &amp; Keppel, M., 2024. Great Artesian Basin 3D chronostratigraphic model: providing new insights into hydrogeological variability and connectivity. In: Czarnota, K. (ed.) Exploring for the Future: Extended Abstracts. Geoscience Australia, Canberra, https://doi.org/10.26186/149235</div>