Google has partnered with hundreds of museums, cultural institutions and archives including Geoscience Australia to host treasures from our National Mineral and Fossil Collection online on the Google Arts & Culture website. Our building's public areas have been scanned and are online via a streetview virtual tour, there are a large number of collection items uploaded which have been used to create many unique and fascinating exhibits.

Version 2: the design of the mouse pad has been updated, increasing its overall size and changing the background colour/graphics. Version 1: 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. Version 1a: The mouse pad design was updated in February 2019 by the Resources Assessment, Advice and Minerals Promotion section to highlight critical commodities (and update the production status of some elements).

Following a Government decision in 1984, Geoscience Australia actively engages in nuclear monitoring activities on behalf of the Australian Government through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's Australian Safeguards and Non-proliferation Office. Geoscience Australia helps Australia fulfil its obligations under the CTBT by monitoring for nuclear explosions worldwide and by contributing to the development of the CTBT verification regime. Geoscience Australia is currently responsible for the operation and maintenance of 10 of Australia's seismo-acoustic IMS facilities (six seismic stations, three infrasound stations and one hydroacoustic station). Additionally, Geoscience Australia is in the process of building the final infrasound station to complete Australia's seismo-acoustic IMS network. Construction of this station is expected to be completed within the next two years. Geoscience Australia actively participates in international fora dedicated to technological advances supporting nuclear non-proliferation and verification, and to the use of IMS data for civil and scientific applications. The latter include tsunami-warning and the monitoring of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

<p>Flythrough movie of Gifford Marine Park, which is located 700 km east of Brisbane, Australia. The park is situated about halfway along the Lord Howe Rise seamount chain on the western flank of the Lord Howe Rise. Seamounts along this chain formed from Miocene volcanism via a migrating magma source (“hotspot”) after the opening of the Tasman Sea. Two large, flat-topped volcanic seamounts dominate the park. Their gently sloping summits have accumulated veneers of sediment, which in places have formed fields of bedforms. Steep cliffs, debris and large mass movement scars encircle each seamount, and contrast with the lower gradient abyssal plains from which they rise. Spanning over 3 km of ocean depths, the seamounts are likely to serve multiple and important roles as breeding locations, resting areas, navigational landmarks or supplementary feeding grounds for some cetaceans (e.g. humpback whales, sperm whales). They may also act as important aggregation points for other highly migratory pelagic species. The bathymetry shown here was collected on two surveys - the first in 2007 by Geoscience Australia and the second in 2017 by Geoscience Australia in collaboration with the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology. The Gifford Marine Park has also been the focus of a study undertaken by the Marine Biodiversity Hub as part of the National Environmental Science Program. <p>This research is supported by the National Environmental Science Program (NESP) Marine Biodiversity Hub through Project D1.

Flythrough of Murray Canyons based on AUSCAN research cruise Jan-March 2003

Prior to the advent of satellite imagery in the 1970s, extensive use was made of aerial photography to systematically image and capture land information. As part of national mapping and survey campaigns run by its predecessors, Geoscience Australia (GA) is custodian of some 1.2 million aerial photos dating back to 1928. Through these campaigns every part of Australia and its external territories was imaged at some point and often repeatedly over the last 90 years, forming a unique and invaluable historical collection. Most importantly, they enable us to extend the record of surface land changes back an additional 50 years or more. GA is progressively moving this collection from analogue to a modern digital data management framework. Discoverability and access to data are essential to realising the full potential of the collection, and associated flight line diagrams are critical in connecting physical and digitised material in the collection to an accurate location consistent with modern datums. The focus of digitisation has been on scanning film and storing individual frames as photo images. Both flight line diagrams are also being digitised and georeferenced, and information on the film is transcribed into a structured database, which will drive a future catalogue for open online access. Only a subset of the aerial photos have been digitised, based on preservation concerns and specific use-cases. GA also is prototyping a new processing workflow to value-add to the digitised collection by creating products that are readily consumable into geographic information systems and as web services. This work may lead to further investment in digitisation by demonstrating broader utility and continuing collaboration with other stakeholders such as the National Archives of Australia. This will be needed to complete the modernisation vision, As with other historic data remediation, surprising finds have been unearthed, gaps in supporting information identified, and an untapped but largely recognised desire for the data. GA is investigating possible applications of citizen science to aid in the modernisation of this collection. This presentation will look at the process undertaken, the type of data available, and will outline some examples of the data, and future use. <b>ePoster is no longer available for access</b>

Australia is a unique continent. This short video introduces the physical geography of Australia using a colourful topographic map. Viewers are shown the three major physical regions of the continent, the lack of large mountains and consider why relatively few people live in Australia given its size.

The 2018 revision of Australia's National Seismic Hazard Assessment (NSHA18) represents a substantial improvement from the 2013 NSHA. In particular, this revision will include a fault source models, an improved and more homogeneous earthquake catalogue, and greater epistemic uncertainty through a call for third party source models. This paper presents updated models of seismicity and ground motion that are currently being developed at Geoscience Australia for the NSHA. We use the OpenQuake software to calculate seismic hazard for Australia and compare with OpenQuake implementations of third-party models and the 2013 NSHA. Weighting of logic tree branches for alternative models are discussed, and how these relate to the fundamental datasets on which they are based. A smoothed seismicity model is developed based on recent seismicity while source models derived from neotectonic fault data consider a much longer time history. Final weightings, including for third party models, will be determined in consultation with members of the Australian seismological community.

A compilation video of flythrough footage showing Great Barrier Reef bathymetry visualisations. Primarily for use by media.

An overview of Geoscience Australia's space-related work through its Positioning Australia program.