This mouse pad was created by the Mineral Exploration Promotion section as an informative give-away for domestic and international conferences. The mouse pad displays an abbreviated periodic table of the elements with those elements that Australia produces, has known resources of and explores for highlighted in different colours.

Professional opinion for Vic Fire Services commission study on warnings (Not for general release)

The next decade promises an exponential increase in volumes of open data from Earth observing satellites (EOS). The ESA Sentinels, the Japan Meteorological Agency's Himawari 8/9 geostationary satellites, and various NASA missions, to name just a few, will produce petabyte scale datasets of national and global significance. If we are to cope with this deluge of data we must embrace the paradigm shift that is 'big data'. This paradigm shift requires a fundamental change in the way we manage and interact with our data from the traditional 'ad-hoc' and labour intensity methods to the new High Performance Data (HPD) models where data are well organised and co-located with High Performance Computational (HPC) facilities. We are now taking the compute power and algorithms to the data instead of downloading the data to our own computers. To meet this challenge Geoscience Australia (GA) has developed the Australian Geoscience Data Cube (AG-DC), hosted on the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI). The AG-DC is a data management system for large scale multi-dimensional data which will allow efficient spatial and temporal analyses of continental scale geospatial datasets, including those produced by EOS. Initial work on the AG-DC has been focused developing a proof of concept using the 25 year archive of calibrated Landsat data to demonstrate a new way of interacting with large volumes of geoscientific data to derive valuable information in a timely fashion. The AG-DC is now being further developed through a collaboration involving GA, CSIRO and the NCI to fully realise the vision of an integrated and operational HPD infrastructure that will enhance Australia's ability to maximise the value and impact of geoscience data to meet the social, economic and environmental challenges we face both now and into the future.

A review of mineral exploration trends, activities and discoveries in Australia in 2013.

Between 2011 and 2015 Geoscience Australia is undertaking a series of CO2 geological storage assessments in select offshore sedimentary basins. Funded under the Australian Government's National CO2 Infrastructure Plan (NCIP) these assessments are designed to provide more detailed understanding of geological characteristics and CO2 storage capacity in these basins. The NCIP program has a strong focus on integrating geophysical, geological and geomorphological data to better understanding basin-wide issues, which affect both petroleum prospectivity and CO2 suitability. The new integrated approach developed for the Australian storage studies could be used for basin-wide geological assessments of overall resource potential, particularly on less explored margins.

This report gives an overview of the activities of the Geoscience Australia IVS Analysis Centre during 2013.

Geoscience Australia, in collaboration with the Northern Territory and state government authorities, is undertaking an assessment of selected Australian sedimentary basins for their unconventional hydrocarbon resource potential. Currently, a study of the southern Georgina Basin is compiling a cross-border dataset of all accessible open-file seismic, well, geological and geochemical data for public release in mid-2014. Major resampling of old wells, in addition to recent exploration drilling data accessed via industry collaborations, have generated new information on source rock characteristics, kerogen kinetics, and gas/oil isotope geochemistry. Preliminary 3D geology and 1D/2D petroleum systems models have also been generated. A major output of the study has been the biostratigraphic revision of the Cambrian Series 2 and 3 in the southern Georgina Basin. The base of the Arthur Creek Formation is now regarded as diachronous, with its age varying from latest Ordian to Templetonian in the west to Floran or younger in the east. Furthermore, the Thorntonia Limestone in the north-east Undilla Sub-basin has been found to consist of two successions, an upper Templetonian unit, disconformably overlying a lower Ordian unit, while in the southern part of the basin, the unit termed Thorntonia Limestone belongs to the lower Ordian only. These results will be released in a series of short technical reports during early 2014. Several cores from the Georgina Basin have been HyLogged by the geological surveys of Northern Territory, Queensland and New South Wales, using HyLogging facilities funded by AuScope Pty Ltd and CSIRO as part of the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) and CSIRO National Virtual Core Library (NVCL) Project. Geoscience Australia currently has a project underway to reprocess the raw HyLogging data using a common set of mineral scalars, to create an internally consistent basin-wide dataset. A composite HyLogging data package will be publicly released during 2014, which will include reprocessed data, information about the processing methods used, and metadata. A second stage of the project will involve interpretation of the reprocessed data, to further examine the relationships between the spectroscopic and mineralogical properties measured by the HyLogger, and core total organic carbon (TOC), XRD, XRF and ICPMS compositional data, gamma log data, and biostratigraphic data. The information will provide a better definition of the extent of the lower Arthur Creek Formation, and delineate the assessment unit for future unconventional hydrocarbon resource assessment of the Georgina Basin. Initial work has indicated interesting trends, such as the apparent relationship between gamma intensity, core SWIR albedo (mean shortwave infrared reflectance) and quartz content (Figure 1 below). Peaks in gamma intensity broadly align with troughs in albedo, suggesting that the reduced albedo is a result of increased TOC content. In the absence of TOC or gamma logs, the HyLogging data thus may provide useful proxies, enabling potential application to other wells in the basin that are data poor. Integration of HyLogging data with other data types thus appears to have significant potential for the rapid assessment of the geology and petroleum prospectivity of a frontier basin. Future work in the Northern Territory by Geoscience Australia is likely to include an assessment of the unconventional and conventional hydrocarbon potential of other basins in the Centralian Superbasin system, e.g. Amadeus and Warburton basins. A desktop study has commenced to establish the current status of knowledge of these basins, and to identify priority areas for future work. Discussions are underway with the NTGS, industry and universities to identify potential areas of collaboration.

Oil and gas discoveries in Australia's offshore basins are concentrated on the North West Shelf (Northern Carnarvon, Browse and Bonaparte basins) and Bass Strait (Gippsland, Otway and Bass basins). While discoveries have been made in a few regions outside these areas (e.g. Perth Basin), a large proportion of Australia's offshore basins remain exploration frontiers. However, the decline in oil production from the North West Shelf and Bass Strait basins since 2000 has led to an increasing exploration interest in the frontier basins. There are 35 offshore frontier basins, sub-basins and provinces located on Australia's northern, northwestern, southwestern, southern, southeastern and remote eastern continental margins, where no hydrocarbons have been discovered, but where the presence of hydrocarbon accumulations is considered possible (Figure 1). These basins are diverse in terms of geology, prospectivity and accessibility, ranging from old (e.g. Proterozoic-Paleozoic Arafura Basin) to young (e.g. Mesozoic-Cenozoic Barcoo Sub-basin), from areas widely acknowledged to be highly prospective (e.g. Ceduna Sub-basin) to those where the prospectivity is more difficult to assess (e.g. Sorell Basin), and from the nearshore (e.g. offshore Sydney Basin) to the remote (e.g. New Caledonia Basin). Geoscience Australia recently completed a report on the geology and prospectivity of frontier basins in the Australian Maritime Jurisdiction, titled 'Petroleum Geology Inventory of Australia's Offshore Frontier Basins'. This study provides a comprehensive overview of the geology, petroleum systems, exploration status and data coverage for all offshore frontier basins, sub-basins and provinces, along with an assessment of the critical science questions and exploration uncertainties for each area. This work draws on the results of Geoscience Australia's pre-competitive data programs conducted from 2003 to 2011, as well as exploration results and the geoscience literature. The study assigns a petroleum prospectivity ranking to each basin, based on the presence or absence of evidence for the existence of active petroleum systems (Table 1). The availability of data and level of knowledge in each area is reflected in a confidence rating for that ranking (Table 2). While the prospectivity of some areas is widely acknowledged to be high (e.g. Ceduna Sub-basin), the perception of prospectivity in many basins is negatively affected by the amount or quality of data available. In these basins, the acquisition of new data or targeted research could make a significant difference to the understanding of petroleum potential and likelihood of exploration success.

We present 1D anisotropic inversion of magnetotelluric (MT) data as a potential tool for mapping structural permeability in sedimentary basins. Using 1D inversions of a 171 site, broadband MT dataset from the Koroit region of the Otway Basin, Victoria, Australia, we have delineated an electrically anisotropic layer at approximately 2.5 to 3.5 km depth. The anisotropy strike is consistent between stations at approximately 160 degrees east of north. The depth of anisotropy corresponds to the top depth of the Lower Cretaceous Crayfish Group, and the anisotropy factor increases from west to east. We interpret the anisotropy as resulting from north-northwest oriented, fluid-filled fractures resulting in enhanced electrical and hydraulic conductivity. This interpretation is consistent with permeability data from well formation tests. It is also consistent with the orientation of mapped faults in the area, which are optimally oriented for reactivation in the current stress field.

Regional geophysical datasets are critical to the task of uncovering the basement geology of the southern Thomson Orogen in far western New South Wales. As part of a National Collaborative Framework project, aeromagnetic, gravity and seismic data have being processed and interpreted to construct the structural framework. Subdivision into structural domains has been validated and constrained by geological information, relying on observations and measurements from sparse drill holes and outcrops. Boundaries between structural domains are complex and poorly understood. This study aimed to recognise major faults and, where possible, define their displacements, depth extent, and understand their dynamics and timing. Analysis of available company and government seismic surveys provided details for some of the major fault systems such as the Olepoloko Fault, Culgoa Lineament, and also for many newly-recognised fault trends The seismic interpretations were reconciled with deeply-sourced aeromagnetic and gravity gradients that were enhanced by multiscale edge analysis. The structural framework will underpin geochronology and mineral systems studies as the Southern Thomson Orogen project continues.