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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.

Due to licence restrictions on the National Electricity Transmission Lines dataset, the metadata statement is the only information available for release. For further information contact clientservices@ga.gov.au This dataset contains the high voltage electricity transmission lines that make up the electricity transmission network in Australia .

The 'Major crustal boundaries of Australia' map synthesizes more than 30 years of acquisition of deep seismic reflection data across Australia, where major crustal-scale breaks have been interpreted in the seismic reflection profiles, often inferred to be relict sutures between different crustal blocks. The widespread coverage of the seismic profiles now provides the opportunity to construct a map of major crustal boundaries across Australia. Starting with the locations of the crustal breaks identified in the seismic profiles, geological (e.g. outcrop mapping, drill hole, geochronology, isotope) and geophysical (e.g. gravity, aeromagnetic, magnetotelluric) data are used to map the crustal boundaries, in map view, away from the seismic profiles. For some of these boundaries, a high level of confidence can be placed on the location, whereas the location of other boundaries can only be considered to have medium or low confidence. In other areas, especially in regions covered by thick sedimentary successions, the locations of some crustal boundaries are essentially unconstrained. The 'Major crustal boundaries of Australia' map shows the locations of inferred ancient plate boundaries, and will provide constraints on the three dimensional architecture of Australia. It allows a better understanding of how the Australian continent was constructed from the Mesoarchean through to the Phanerozoic, and how this evolution and these boundaries have controlled metallogenesis. It is best viewed as a dynamic dataset, which will have to be further refined and updated as new information such as seismic reflection data becomes available.

This is a compilation of all the bathymetry data that GA holds in its database for the area that covers the Diamantina Fracture Zone to the Naturaliste Plateau. This dataset consist of different 6X4 degrees tiles that are: Tiles SI48,SJ48,SK48,SL48, SI47,SJ47, SK47,SL47, SJ46,SK46,SL46, SK45 and SL45)

Due to licence restrictions on the National Electricity Transmission Substations dataset, the metadata statement is the only information available for release. For further information contact clientservices@ga.gov.au The dataset held by GA contains the spatial locations for Electricity Transmission Substations in Australia in point format as a representation of the substation features.

PLEASE NOTE: These data have been updated. See Related Links for new data. Geodatabase of the Commonwealth Seas and Submerged Lands Act 1973 - An Act relating to Sovereignty in respect of certain Waters of the Sea and in respect of the Airspace over, and the Sea bed and Subsoil beneath, those Waters and to Sovereign Rights in respect of the Continental Shelf and the Exclusive Economic Zone and to certain rights of control in respect of the Contiguous Zone.

PLEASE NOTE: These data have been updated. See Related Links for new data. Geodatabase of the Commonwealth Coastal Waters (State/Territory Powers) Act 1980 - An Act to extend the legislative powers of the States/Northern Territory in and in relation to coastal waters.

2014 Open Day Promotional Material

The mechanism and uplift history of Australia's southeastern highlands has long been debated. End member models account for the topography as a down warped relict of an ancient plateau or a consequence of uplift associated with either rifting along the eastern margin or Cenozoic volcanism. All of these models assume present-day elevation is a consequence of isostatic equilibrium at the base of the crust. An analysis of the relationship between gravity and topography in the spectral domain shows the admittance at wavelengths longer than those controlled by flexure is ~50 mgal km-1. This value is characteristic of dynamic support arising from thermal anomalies beneath the plate predicted by multiple mantle convection simulations and observed over Africa, Antarctic and the Pacific Ocean. Division of long-wavelength filtered gravity by this admittance value suggests the southeastern highlands are supported by 400-900 m. The morphological expressions of this support are the Great Escarpment and major knick zones on rivers such as the Snowy. The temporal evolution of this support can be determined by exploiting longitudinal river profiles since their shape is controlled by uplift and modulated by erosion. By applying the well-known detachment limited stream power law to model erosion uplift histories can be extracted provided erosional parameters can be constrained. By calibrating the erosional parameters using incision rates along the Tumut River and Tumbarumba Creek as well as palaeoelevations of basalt flows the uplift history of the southeastern highlands can ascertained directly from the landscape. Our results show uplift of the southeastern highlands occurred in two phases associated with Cretaceous age rifting resulting in Tasman Sea floor spreading and Cenozoic volcanism. The latter event accounts for the observed amplitude of present-day dynamic topography thereby suggesting Cenozoic uplift occurred from an unperturbed isotactic elevation. Since Cretaceous rifting along the southeastern margin occurred over a cool mantle given the oldest oceanic floor is thinner than the global average it is unlikely that rift related uplift is a consequence of mafic underplating. The most likely driver for this earlier phase of uplift is emergence of eastern Australia from a dynamically drawdown position which has been inferred to explain the widespread mid-Cretaceous marine inundation of Eastern Australia. Therefore it is likely that both uplift events are controlled by changes in the thermal state of the mantle as opposed to changes in crustal thickness and density. This history of vertical motions is consistent with long-term river incision rates, basin sequence stratigraphy and thermochronological studies.