Mineral deposits, although geographically small in extent, are the result of processes-which together form a mineral system-that occur, and can be mapped at, a variety of scales, up to craton-scale and larger. The mineral system approach has the benefit that in it focuses on critical processes and can include larger scales not always considered. Understanding the four-dimensional evolution of the crust, for example, is important, as it can provide critical constraints on the geodynamic history, the lithospheric architecture and development, and potentially identify metallogenic terranes. Constraining the nature and evolution of the crust is not easy, however, given its largely inaccessible nature. Just as the study of basaltic rocks has provided insight into the earth's mantle, granites, provide a window into the middle and lower continental crust. Studies of these rocks are enhanced by the use of isotopic tracers (e.g., U-Pb, Sm-Nd, Lu-Hf), long used to provide constraints on geological processes and components involved in those processes.

Fugitive methane emissions, in particular relating to coal seam gas (CSG),has become an emerging issue in Australia over the last few years. There has been significant controversy in US regarding the magnitude of fugitive emissions during production from unconventional gas wells, with large differences in emissions reported between studies using different measurement approaches. . Preliminary research into a small number of Australia's unconventional fields suggest the average fugitive emissions per well are lower than that found in the US. The primary challenge is that the techniques for quantifying methane leakages are still at an early stage of development. Current methods for the small to medium scale use chamber based approaches or vehicles installed with fixed sampling lines and high precisions gas analysers. These technologies are promising, but generally have not been ground truthed in field conditions against known emission rates to estimate effectiveness. They also have limited application in environments where vehicle access is not possible. The Ginniderra facility is being upgraded to support a methane controlled release experiment in 2015. This will enable testing of and verifying methods and technologies for measuring and quantifying methane emissions. To address the absence of suitable techniques for emmission measurement at medium scales, several BOREAL lasers will be deployed which work at scales of 20-1000 m. It is also envisaged airborne techniques utilising laser and hyperspectral will be deployed, along with tomography work utilising multiple concurrent concentration measurements.

This disc contains scanned PDF copies of uranium-related reports held by Geoscience Australia from the archives of the former Australian Atomic Energy Commission. These reports date from the early 1970s to early 1980s. The reports are a mix of exploration reports, geological and geographical maps, proposals, feasibility studies, estimations, reserve information, drill hole data and drill cross section files.

Since the early 2000s Geoscience Australia has been compiling new seamless national continental scale geological maps. The first edition of a seamless 1:1 000 000 scale surface geology map of Australia was released in 2008 [1] and the latest edition released in 2012 [2]. This work draws extensively from available geological mapping in Australia, primarily at the scales of 1:250 000 and 1:100 000 with the addition of some special regional scale maps. The digital GIS dataset is linked to other national geoscience databases at Geoscience Australia, including the Australian Stratigraphic Units Database. In September 2013, Geoscience Australia released the first national Geological Provinces dataset [3]. Geoscience Australia's Geological Provinces Database captures detailed information such as age, stratigraphy, lithology, mineral resources, and relations to other provinces. It also captures outlines of the full (ie, concealed) extent and outcropping extent of a province. As part of Geoscience Australia's contribution to Searching the Deep Earth [4], current continental scale digital geological mapping in Geoscience Australia includes production of a new national bedrock geological map at 1:2 500 000 scale with stratigraphic units information that can be linked with other national geoscience databases, basement geology, and a national regolith landforms coverage. Looking ahead, a goal is to produce seamless, continental scale basement or 'solid' geology maps for a variety of depth/time slices. A recent step towards this goal has been the production of a map of Mesoproterozoic and older basement geology for a large region of central Australia, from the eastern Yilgarn Craton of Western Australia across the Musgrave and southern Arunta Provinces to the Queensland border.

A general lack of exploration success in the offshore northern Perth Basin sheared margin has lead to a perception that the primary source rock onshore (Triassic Kockatea Shale Hovea Member) is absent or has limited generative potential. However, recent offshore well studies show the unit is present and oil prone. Multiple palaeo-oil columns were identified within Permian reservoirs below the Kockatea Shale seal. This prompted a trap integrity study into fault reactivation as a critical risk for hydrocarbon preservation. Breach of accumulations could be attributed to JurassicEarly Cretaceous extension, Valanginian breakup, margin tilt or localised Miocene inversion. This study focused on four prospects, covered by 3D seismic data, containing breached and preserved oil columns. 3D geomechanical modelling simulated the response of trap-bounding faults and fluid flow to Jurassic-Early Cretaceous NW-SE extension. Calibration of modelling results against fluid inclusion data, as well as current and palaeo-oil columns, demonstrates that along-fault fluid flow correlates with areas of high shear and volumetric strains. Localisation of deformation leads to both an increase in structural permeability promoting fluid flow, and the development of hard-linkages between reactivated Permian reservoir faults and Jurassic faults producing top seal bypass. The main structural factors controlling the distribution of permeable fault segments are: (i) failure of faults striking 350??110?N; (ii) fault plane intersections generating high shear deformation and dilation; and (iii) preferential reactivation of larger faults shielding neighbouring structures. These results point to a regional predictive approach for assessing trap integrity in the offshore northern Perth Basin. While this approach will help explorers reduce risk the study highlights the need to identify other play types that avoid fault seal breach. An as yet untested potential basin floor fan stratigraphic play in the Abrolhos Sub-basin and analogues to the successful Cretaceous stratigraphic traps along the West African sheared margin in the Zeewyck Sub-basin may satisfy these criteria.

1 map showing the Acreage Release Title AC15-3 in the area of Overlapping Jurisdiction in the Perth Treaty. Requested by RET August 2014. LOSAMBA register 707

Series of information sheets designed to provide landholders and local community with information regarding the activities being underatken as part of the Southern Thomson pre-competitive geoscience project, run in collaboration with the Queensland and New South Wales State Geological Surveys.

Australia is bounded on three sides by passive continental margins, a legacy of Gondwana breakup as first India and then Zealandia, followed by Antarctica, separated from Australia during the Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous through to earliest Oligocene. As with most other rifted continental margins, breakup along each of these three margins occurred episodically, controlled by a number of factors including mantle rheology, pre-existing lithospheric and basement structure, and the direction of crustal extension prevailing at any one time during successive stages of continental rifting. Resulting post-rift passive margin geometries are consequently highly segmented and characterised by abrupt changes in orientation along strike that commonly coincide with pre-existing basement structures or crustal-scale heterogeneities across which there is a commensurate change in offshore basin architecture and normal fault patterns. Mapping of these heterogeneities in geological and geophysical datasets combined with a growing realisation that many of these basement features extend all the way to the ocean-continent boundary has focussed attention on the extent to which these same crustal structures may also have influenced the distribution and pattern of ocean floor fracture zone development. A prominent re-entrant along Australia's 4000-km long southern rifted margin marks the site of an early Paleozoic crustal-scale basement structure whose N-S orientation was optimal for reactivation during a switch in the direction of extension from NW-SE to N-S during the closing stages of continental rifting from about 55-47 Ma onward. This structure evolved from a continental transform boundary into the Tasman Fracture Zone with consequent development of a sheared continental margin along the western margin of the South Tasman Rise analogous to that formed off the Ghanaian coast during the separation of Africa from South America. As with its West African counterpart, seismic reflection profiles point to a strong strike-slip influence on basin geometry with en echelon development of elongate, narrow depocentres bounded by discontinuous steep to subvertical faults. Equally spectacular pull-apart basins associated with the 1500km-long Wallaby-Zenith Fracture Zone off Western Australia are similarly developed in thinned continental crust but, unlike the basins associated with the South Tasman Rise, they have been better seismically imaged and contain a substantially greater thickness of sediment (up to 5 seconds TWT). Interpreted seismic sections across the Zeewyck Sub-basin beneath the Valanginian breakup unconformity show a complex network of deep sedimentary basins bounded by steep faults and blocks of elevated older basement (positive flower structures) across which there is only limited lateral continuity in stratigraphy. Sedimentary sequences immediately above the breakup unconformity thicken into the basin axis and exhibit wedge-like geometries consistent with detritus shed from the adjacent basement highs as the sheared continental margin evolved and the associated spreading axis migrated oceanward. A period of basin-wide folding and faulting accompanied by uplift and erosion brought this phase of basin formation to a close and possibly occurred in response to transpression immediately prior to the onset of full drift. Fabrics in the adjacent N-S striking Pinjarra Orogen and related Darling Fault played an important role in localising extensional strain during formation of the Zeewyck Sub-basin and greater Perth Basin.

Geoscience Australia (GA) is a leading promoter of airborne electromagnetic (AEM) surveying for regional mapping of cover thickness, under-cover basement geology and sedimentary basin architecture. Geoscience Australia flew three regional AEM surveys during the 2006-2011 Onshore Energy Security Program (OESP): Paterson (Western Australia, 2007-08); Pine Creek-Kombolgie (Northern Territory, 2009); and Frome (South Australia, 2010). Results from these surveys have produced a new understanding of the architecture of critical mineral system elements and mineral prospectivity (for a wide range of commodities) of these regions in the regolith, sedimentary basins and buried basement terrains. The OESP AEM survey data were processed using the National Computational Infrastructure (NCI) at the Australian National University to produce GIS-ready interpretation products and GOCADTM objects. The AEM data link scattered stratigraphic boreholes and seismic lines and allow the extrapolation of these 1D and 2D objects into 3D, often to explorable depths (~ 500 m). These data sets can then be combined with solid geology interpretations to allow researchers in government, industry and academia to build more reliable 3D models of basement geology, unconformities, the depth of weathering, structures, sedimentary facies changes and basin architecture across a wide area. The AEM data can also be used to describe the depth of weathering on unconformity surfaces that affects the geophysical signatures of underlying rocks. A number of 3D models developed at GA interpret the under-cover geology of cratons and mobile zones, the unconformity surfaces between these and the overlying sedimentary basins, and the architecture of those basins. These models are constructed primarily from AEM data using stratigraphic borehole control and show how AEM data can be used to map the cross-over area between surface geological mapping, stratigraphic drilling and seismic reflection mapping. These models can be used by minerals explorers to more confidently explore in areas of shallow to moderate sedimentary basin cover by providing more accurate cover thickness and depth to target information. The impacts of the three OESP AEM surveys are now beginning to be recognised. The success of the Paterson AEM Survey has led to the Geological Survey of Western Australia announcing a series of OESP-style regional AEM surveys for the future, the first of which (the Capricorn Orogen AEM Survey) completed acquisition in January 2014. Several new discoveries have been attributed to the OESP AEM data sets including deposits at Yeneena (copper) and Beadell (copper-lead-zinc) in the Paterson region, Thunderball (uranium) in the Pine Creek region and Farina (copper) in the Frome region. New tenements for uranium, copper and gold have also been announced on the results of these surveys. Regional AEM is now being applied in a joint State and Commonwealth Government initiative between GA, the Geological Survey of Queensland and the Geological Survey of New South Wales to assess the geology and prospectivity of the Southern Thomson Orogen around Hungerford and Eulo. These data will be used to map the depth of the unconformity between the Thomson Orogen rocks and overlying sedimentary basins, interpret the nature of covered basement rocks and provide more reliable cover thickness and depth to target information for explorers in this frontier area.

AAM was engaged by DPIPWE to acquire LiDAR data over several coastal areas of Tasmania during March and April 2014. Lady Barron comprises approximately 7.42 km²