Interpretation of the Capricorn deep seismic reflection survey has provided images which allow us to examine the geodynamic relationships between the Pilbara Craton, Capricorn Orogen and Yilgarn Craton in Western Australia. Prior to the seismic survey, suture zones were proposed at the Talga Fault, between the Pilbara Craton and the Capricorn Orogen, and at the Errabiddy Shear Zone between the Yilgarn Craton and the Glenburgh Terrane, the southernmost component of the Capricorn Orogen. Our interpretation of the seismic lines indicates that there is a suture between the Pilbara Craton and the newly-recognised Bandee Seismic Province. Our interpretation also suggests that the Capricorn Orogen can be subdivided into at least two discrete crustal blocks, with the interpretation of a suture between them at the Lyons River Fault. Finally, the seismic interpretation has confirmed previous interpretations that the crustal architecture between the Narryer Terrane of the Yilgarn Craton and the Glenburgh Terrane consists of a south-dipping structure in the middle to lower crust, with the Errabiddy Shear Zone being an upper crustal thrust system where the Glenburgh Terrane has been thrust to the south over the Narryer Terrane.

The Archean Yilgarn Craton of Western Australia, is not only one of the largest extant fragments of Archean crust in the world, but is also one of the most richly-mineralised regions in the world. Understanding the evolution of the craton is important, therefore, for constraining Archean geodynamics, and the influence of such on Archean mineral systems. The Yilgarn Craton is dominated by felsic intrusive rocks - over 70% of the rock types. As such these rocks hold a significant part of the key to understanding the four-dimensional evolution of the craton, providing constraints on the nature and timing of crustal growth, the role of the mantle, and also the timing of important switches in crustal growth geodynamics. The granites also provide constraints on the nature and age of the crustal domains within the craton. Importantly, this crustal pre-history appears to have exerted a significant, but poorly understood, spatial control on the distribution of mineral systems, such as gold, komatiite-associated nickel sulphide and volcanic-hosted massive sulphide (VHMS) base metal systems

Interpretation of deep seismic reflection profiling coupled with forward modelling of gravity and aeromagnetic data, new zircon U-Pb age dating and the interpretation of the basement geology beneath the southern margin of the Eromanga Basin has provided insights into the southern part of the underlying Thomson Orogen and its relationship with the Lachlan Orogen to the south. Our interpretations of these data suggest that the northern Lachlan and southern Thomson orogens possessed a similar history from the mid-Late Silurian through to the Carboniferous. Major older differences, however, are suggested by the presence in the southern Thomson Orogen of relics of a possible Neoproterozoic arc, of Late Ordovician turbidites, by the geophysical evidence for crustal thickening caused by elevation of reflective lower crustal metavolcanic rocks high into the crust on a low-angle, north-dipping detachment thrust, and by old K-Ar age dates in southwestern Queensland. The seismically-imaged, north-dipping, crustal-scale Olepoloko Fault corresponds to the surface expression of Thomson-Lachlan boundary, and reflects the dip-slip and strike-slip partial reactivation and short-cutting of an older fault, which occurred in the Carboniferous, and probably also in the latest Silurian and Early Devonian.

Source The data was sourced from CSIRO (Victoria) in 2012 by Bob Cechet. It is not known specifically which division of CSIRO, although it is likely to have been the Marine and Atmospheric Research Division (Aspendale), nor the contact details of the person who provided the data to Bob. The data was originally produced by CSIRO for their input into the South-East Queensland Climate Adaptation Research Initiative (SEQCARI). Reference, from an email of 16 March 2012 sent from Bob Cechet to Chris Thomas (Appendix 1 of the README doc stored at the parent folder level with the data), is made to 'download NCEP AVN/GFS files' or to source them from the CSIRO archive. Content The data is compressed into 'tar' files. The name content is separated by a dot where the first section is the climatic variable as outlined in the table format below: Name Translation rain 24 hr accumulated precipitation rh1_3PM Relative humidity at 3pm local time tmax Maximum temperature tmin Minimum temperature tscr_3PM Screen temperature (2 m above ground) at 3pm local time u10_3PM 10-metre above ground eastward wind speed at 3pm local time v10_3PM 10-metre above ground northward wind speed at 3pm local time The second part of the name is the General Circulation Model (GCM) applied: Name Translation gfdlcm21 GFDL CM2.1 miroc3_2_medres MIROC 3.2 (medres) mpi_echam5 MPI ECHAM5 ncep NCEP The third, and final, part of the tarball name is the year range that the results relate to: 1961-2000, 1971-2000, 2001-2040 and 2041-2099 Data format and extent Inside each of the tarball files is a collection of NetCDF files covering each simulation that constitutes the year range (12 simulations for each year). A similar naming protocol is used for the NetCDF files with a two digit extension added to the year for each of the simulations for that year (e.g 01-12). The spatial coverage of the NetCDF files is shown in the bounding box extents as shown below. Max X: -9.92459297180176 Min X: -50.0749073028564 Max Y: 155.149784088135 Min Y: 134.924812316895 The cell size is 0.15 degrees by 0.15 degrees (approximately 17 km square at the equator) The data is stored relative to the WGS 1984 Geographic Coordinate System. The GCMs were forced with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) A2 emission scenario as described in the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) inputs for the future climate. The GCM results were then downscaled from a 2 degree cell resolution by CSIRO using their Cubic Conformal Atmospheric Model (CCAM) to the 0.15 degree cell resolution. Use This data was used within the Rockhampton Project to identify the future climate changes based on the IPCC A2 SRES emissions scenario. The relative difference of the current climate GCM results to the future climate results was applied to the results of higher resolution current climate natural hazard modelling. Refer to GeoCat # 75085 for the details relating to the report and the 59 attached ANZLIC metadata entries for data outputs.

The Asia-Pacific Reference Frame (APREF) project is an initiative that recognizes the importance of improving the regional geodetic framework in the Asia-Pacific region. A substantial number of state-of-the-art GNSS networks, operated by national mapping agencies and private sector organizations, are available in the region. In the APREF initiative these networks are combined to realize a high-standard regional reference frame. The GNSS data of the network are processed by different Analysis Centres (ACs). The contributions of the different ACs are combined into a weekly solution by the APREF Central Bureau. This weekly solution is the core product of the APREF; it contains weekly estimates of the coordinates of the participating Asia-Pacific GNSS tracking stations and their covariance information. The APREF products, which have been available since the first quarter of 2010, gives a reliable time-series of a regional reference frame in the International Terrestrial Reference Frame and a quality assessment of the performance of the GNSS CORS stations included in the network. This contribution gives an overview of the current status of the APREF network and an analysis of the first APREF products.

As part of the Australian Government's Onshore Energy Security Program and the Queensland Government's Smart Mining and Smart Exploration initiatives, deep seismic reflection surveys (~2300 line km) were conducted in North Queensland to establish the architecture and geodynamic framework of this area in 2006 (Mt Isa Survey; also involving OZ Minerals and pmd*CRC) and 2007 (Cloncurry-Georgetown-Charters Towers Survey; also involving AuScope). The purpose here is to use new geodynamic insights inferred from the seismic and other data to provide comments on the large-scale geodynamic controls on energy and other mineral potential in North Queensland.

We have used data recorded by a temporary seismograph deployment to infer constraints on the state of crustal stress in the Flinders Ranges in south-central Australia. Previous stress estimates for the region have been poorly constrained due to the lack of large events and limited station coverage for focal mechanisms. New data allowed 65 events with 544 first motions to be used in a stress inversion to estimate the principal stress directions and stress ratio.While our initial inversion suggested that stress in the region was not homogeneous, we found that discarding data for events in the top 2km of the crust resulted in a well-constrained stress orientation that is consistent with the assumption of homogeneous stress throughout the Flinders Ranges. We speculate that the need to screen out shallow events may be due to the presence in the shallow crust of either: (1) small-scale velocity heterogeneity that would bias the ray parameter estimates, or (2) heterogeneity in the stress field itself, possibly due to the influence of the relatively pronounced topographic relief. The stress derived from earthquakes in the Flinders Ranges show an oblique reverse faulting stress regime, which contrasts with the pure thrust and pure strike slip regimes suggested by earlier studies. However, the roughly E-W direction of maximum horizontal compressive stress we obtain supports the conclusion of virtually all previous studies that the Flinders Ranges are undergoing E-W compression due to orogenic events at the boundaries of the Australian and Indian Plates.

The rifting history of the magma-poor conjugate margins of Australia (Great Australian Bight) and Antarctica (Terre Adélie) is still a controversial issue. In this paper, we present a model for lithosphere-scale rifting and deformation history from initial rifting to breakup, based on the interpretation of two regional conjugate seismic profiles of the margins, and the construction of a lithosphere-scale, balanced cross section, sequentially restored through time. The model scenario highlights the symmetric pattern of initial stretching resulting to pure shear at lithospheric-scale accompanied by the development of four conjugate detachments and crustal half-graben systems. This system progressively evolves to completely asymmetric shearing along a single south-dipping detachment at the scale of the lithosphere. The detachment accounts for the exhumation of the mantle part of the Australian lithosphere, and the isolation of a crustal klippe separated from the margin by a peridotite ridge. Antarctica plays the role of the upper plate with the formation of an external crustal high separated from the unstretched continental crust by a highly extended zone still active during the Australian exhumation phase. The total elongation amount of the Australian-Antarctic conjugate system reaches ~413km (61%). Elongation was partitioned through time: ~189km and ~224km during symmetric and asymmetric stages, respectively. During symmetric stage, both margins suffered relatively the same elongation accommodated by crustal stretching (~105km (45%) and ~84km (38%) for Australia and Antarctica, respectively). Again, both margins accommodated relatively the same elongation during the asymmetric stage: the Antarctic upper plate records an elongation amount of ~225km (40%) as crustal tectonic stretching, above the inferred low-angle south dipping detachment zone, whereas the Australian lower plate suffered ~206km (61%) of elongation through mantle exhumation.

Deep crustal seismic data collected in 2006 and 2007 highlight prospectivity for geothermal and energy mineral systems in north Queensland as well as providing insight into geodynamic controls on IOCG(U) and metasomatic U deposits. IOCG deposits in the eastern Mt Isa Inlier are located in the hanging wall of a major crustal discontinuity that is imaged at surface as a gravity high. At a broader scale these deposits are spatially associated with the Carpentaria conductance anomaly, which can be traced south to the Olympic IOCG(U) deposit. The surveys also identified the previously unknown Millungera Basin which appears to overlie granitic bodies. This architecture is favourable for the presence of geothermal systems, with the granites providing heat beneath the basin insulator and heat trap. This basin has unknown potential for petroleum and energy minerals. Metasomatic deposits in the western Mt Isa Inlier appear to be associated with inverted extensional faults that bound major troughs. Inversion of these faults during the Isan Orogeny allowed fluid flow to suitable U traps.

This article presents the results of studies in North Queensland associated with the 2007 Mt Isa-Georgetown-Charters Towers seismic survey. Results include seismic interpretation, geophysical studies and 3D maps, tectonic and metallogenic syntheses and energy potential assessment.