International efforts to protect the Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems (VMEs) that live on cold seeps and hydrothermal vents requires methods to predict where these features might be in advance of human activity. We suggest an approach to identifying seeps and vents in the CCAMLR region that uses existing data to highlight areas of possible seep and vent communities. These hierarchical criteria can be used to reduce the accidental disturbance of seep communities. We propose a 4 level classification of indicators: Class 1 Areas: VME confirmed by recovery of organisms or observation (video, stills). This level would qualify for VME status and high levels of protection. Class 2 Areas: Seepage/venting present but VME not confirmed. These locations would have a number of indicators of active seepage but VMEs have not been identified. Class 3 Areas: Seepage suspected from geophysical, geochemical or oceanographic observations. These areas have seismic indications of shallow gas or clathrates , structures suggesting fluid escape but where bubble flares or water column plumes have not been detected or where plume has been detected but not tied to an area of sea floor. Class 4 Areas: Area or geomorphic features associated with seepage and vents. These areas are large-scale geomorphic features such as Mid-Ocean Ridge rift valleys or volcanoes where vents are likely but not yet detected. Class 3 and Class 4 areas have been mapped from 45oE to 160oE using global bathymetry grids and seismic data from the SCAR Seismic Data Library.

Geoscience Australia's involvement in Antarctica has primarily been focused on the maintenance and enhancement of geodetic infrastructure within the Australian Antarctic Territory (AAT). Such infrastructure provides a fundamental reference frame for the region and supports earth monitoring science applications on local, regional and continental scales. These foundations have furthered the development of geodesy throughout the continent and provided information on the contemporary motion of the Antarctic plate for comparison with long-term geological records. Primary Antarctic geodetic control also contributes to a greater understanding of global earth movement though contribution to the International Terrestrial Reference Frame solutions. This report focuses on the field work undertaken during the 2010/11 Antarctic summer by Geoscience Australia surveyors at the Davis, Mawson and Macquarie Island research stations, as well as several remote sites in Eastern Antarctica. At each of the research stations, upgrades and local monitoring surveys were performed at the continuously operating reference stations (CORS), which form part of the Australian Regional GNSS Network and also contribute to the International GNSS Service. Remote GPS sites in the Grove Mountains, Bunger Hills, Wilson Bluff and Mt Creswell were also visited for equipment upgrades and data retrieval. Additional surveys were undertaken directed at enhancing the spatial infrastructure around both the Larsemann and Vestfold Hills. Support was also provided to a number of different Australian Antarctic Division projects.

Geoscience Australia distributes a range of Antarctica maps and images at various scales and currency, on behalf of Australian Antarctic Division. These products are very diverse and include topographic maps and satellite images, ranging from landscape specific (1:1,000 scale) to regional (1:20,000,000) scale.

Life in icy waters: A geoscience perspective of life on the Antarctic seafloor

The Cenozoic glacial history of East Antarctica is recorded in part by the stratigraphy of the Prydz Bay-Lambert Graben region. The glacigene strata and associated erosion surfaces record at least 10 intervals of glacial advance (with accompanying erosion and sediment compaction), and more than 17 intervals of glacial retreat (enabling open marine deposition in Prydz Bay and the Lambert Graben). The number of glacial advances and retreats is considerably less than would be expected from Milankovitch frequencies due to the incomplete stratigraphic record. Large advances of the Lambert Glacier caused progradation of the continental shelf edge. At times of extreme glacial retreat, marine conditions reached > 450 km inland from the modern ice shelf edge. This review presents a partial reconstruction of Cenozoic glacial extent within Prydz Bay and the Lambert Graben that can be compared to eustatic sea-level records from the southern Australian continental margin.

Multichannel seismic data collected off Wilkes Land (East Antarctica) reveal four main units that represent distinct phases in the evolution of the Cenozoic depositional environment. A Cretaceous synrift succession is overlain by hemipelagic and distal terrigenous sequences deposited during Phase 1. Sediment ridges and debris-flow deposits mark the transition to Phase 2. Unit 3 records the maximum sediment input from the continent and is characterized by the predominance of turbidite deposits. During Phase 4 the sediment supply from the continental margin was reduced, and draping and filling were the dominant processes on the continental rise. Unit 4 also contains the deposits of sediment wave fields and asymmetric channel-levee systems. These four units are a response to the Cenozoic evolution of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet. During Phase 1, small ice caps were formed in the innermost continental areas. The ice volume increased under temperate glacial regimes during Phases 2 and 3, when large volumes of melt-water production led to high sediment discharge to the continental rise. Change to a polar regime occurred through Phase 4, when a thick prograding wedge developed on the continental shelf and slope and the sediment transport to the rise diminished, producing general starvation conditions.

A late Quaternay, current-lain sediment drift deposit over 30 metres in thickness has been discovered on the continental shelf of East Antarctica in an 850 metre deep glacial trough off George Vth Land. Radiocarbon dating indicates that a period of rapid deposition on the drift occurred in the mid-Holocene, between about 3 000 and 5 000 years before present.

To study the seafloor morpholofy on the George V land shelf, East Antarctica, over 2000 kilometres of high-frequency echo-sounder data were collected between February and March 2000. The acoustic facies are explained in terms of glacial and oceanographic influences on the shelf since the Last Glacial Maximum.

The stability of floating ice shelves is an important indicator of ocean circulation and ice-shelf mass balance. A sub-ice -shelf sediment core collected during the Austral summer of 2000-2001 from site AM02 on the Amery Ice Shelf, East Antarctica, contains a full and continuous record of glacial retreat.

Physical and biological characteristics of benthic communities are analysed from underwater video footage collected across the George V Shelf during the 2007/2008 CEAMARC voyage. Benthic habitats are strongly structured by physical processes operating over a range of temporal and spatial scales. Iceberg scouring recurs over timescales of years to centuries along shallower parts of the shelf, creating communities in various stages of maturity and recolonisation. Upwelling of modified circumpolar deep water (MCDW) onto the outer shelf, and cross-shelf flow of high salinity shelf water (HSSW) create spatial contrasts in nutrient and sediment supply, which are largely reflected in the distribution of deposit and filter feeding communities. Long term cycles in the advance and retreat of icesheets (over millennial scales) and subsequent focussing of sediments in troughs such as the Mertz Drift create patches of consolidated and soft sediments, which also provide distinct habitats for colonisation by different biota. These physical processes of iceberg scouring, current regimes and depositional environments, in addition to water depth, are shown to be important factors in the structure of benthic communities across the George V Shelf. The modern shelf communities mapped in this study largely represent colonisation over the past 8-12ka, following retreat of the icesheet and glaciers at the end of the last glaciation (Harris et al., 2001; Ingólfsson et al., 1998). Recolonisation on this shelf may have occurred from two sources: deep-sea environments, and possible shelf refugia on the Mertz and Adélie Banks. However, any open shelf area would have been subject to intense iceberg scouring (Beaman and Harris, 2003). Understanding the timescales over which shelf communities have evolved and the physical factors which shape them, will allow better prediction of the distribution of Antarctic shelf communities and their vulnerability to change. This knowledge can aid better management regimes for the Antarctic margin.