With the increasing emphasis on electronic rather that paper products, the need for adequate metadata is becoming more and more pressing. The new AGSO Catalog is designed to address this problem at the corporate level. Developed from the AGSO Products Database, the AGSO Catalog is designed to encompass most of AGSOs outputs, datasets and resources. It does this with the help of various intranet and Web interfaces. Projects or authors must initiate Catalog entries, for without an acceptable metadata a product cannot be sold by the Sales Centre, or permission to publish will not be granted. The Catalog is the key to future systems of information distribution and sales. It will permit us to go directly from the metadata to the electronically stored objects, thus enabling automated information distribution and electronic commerce.

The fruits of geoscientists' labours are consigned increasingy to computer files. Although the capacities of electronic media are expanding rapidly, the means of keeping track of all these files is lagging. Knowledge-based organisations like AGSO need the electronic equivalent of libraries to house this information, the analogue of library catalogues to allow us to find critical bits, and the equivalent of librarians to manage the metadata. Files worth keeping must be kept permanently online, referenced by a metadatabase, visible on the Web, accessible from around the world, and in compliance with changing hardware, software and data standards.

The Gravity Survey Index presents a summary of the essential specifications on about 1000 gravity surveys held in the National Gravity Database. Gravity measurements have been made in Australia since about 1900. Organised surveys for geophysical purposes (initially oil and coal exploration) have been conducted from 1939 onwards. The dataset includes surveys carried out by AGSO (BMR), state governments, private companies, universities and other organisations. The digital point data, maps and grids derived from these surveys are available as separate products. Additional to the survey index is the locations of the the Australian fundamental gravity network stations as a separate dataset.

Exploring for the Future (EFTF) is a four-year (2016-20) geoscience data and information acquisition program that aims to better understand on a regional scale the potential mineral, energy and groundwater resources concealed under cover in northern Australia and parts of South Australia. Hydrogeochemical surveys utilise groundwater as a passive sampling medium to reveal the chemistry of the underlying geology including hidden mineralisation. These surveys also potentially provide input into regional baseline groundwater datasets that can inform environmental monitoring and decision making. Geoscience Australia, as part of the Australian Government’s EFTF program, undertook an extensive groundwater sampling survey in collaboration with the Northern Territory Geological Survey and the Geological Survey of Queensland. During the 2017, 2018 and 2019 dry season, 224 groundwater samples (including field duplicate samples) were collected from 203 pastoral and water supply bores in the Tennant Creek-Mt Isa EFTF focus area of the Northern Territory and Queensland. An additional 38 groundwater samples collected during the 2013 dry season in the Lake Woods region from 35 bores are included in this release as they originate from within the focus area. The area was targeted to evaluate its mineral potential with respect to iron oxide copper-gold, sediment-hosted lead-zinc-silver and Cu-Co, and/or lithium-boron-potash mineral systems, among others. The 2017-2019 surveys were conducted across 21 weeks of fieldwork and sampled groundwater for a comprehensive suite of hydrogeochemical parameters, including isotopes, analysed over subsequent months. The present data release includes information and atlas maps of: 1) sampling sites; 2) physicochemical parameters (EC, pH, Eh, DO and T) of groundwater measured in the field; 3) field measurements of total alkalinity (HCO3-), dissolved sulfide (S2-), and ferrous iron (Fe2+); 4) major cation and anion results; 5) trace element concentrations; 6) isotopic results of water (δ18O and δ2H), DIC (δ13C), dissolved sulfate (δ34S and δ18O), dissolved strontium (87Sr/86Sr), and dissolved lead (204Pb, 206Pb, 207Pb, and 208Pb) isotopes; 7) dissolved hydrocarbon VFAs, BTEX, and methane concentrations, as well as methane isotopes (δ13C and δ2H); and 8) atlas of hydrogeochemical maps representing the spatial distribution of these parameters. Pending analyses include: CFCs and SF6; tritium; Cu isotopes; and noble gas concentrations (Ar, Kr, Xe, Ne, and 4He) and 3He/4He ratio. This data release (current as of July 2021) is the second in a series of staged releases and interpretations from the Northern Australia Hydrogeochemical Survey. It augments and revises the first data release, which it therefore supersedes. Relevant data, information and images are available through the GA website (https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/133388) and GA’s EFTF portal (https://portal.ga.gov.au/).

A metadata report for the atmospheric monitoring station installed in Arcturus, south of Emerald in central Queensland. The station was installed for baseline atmospheric monitoring to contribute to emission modelling spanning 2010-2014. The station included compositional gas analysers, supporting meteorological sensors and an eddy covariance flux tower. The metadata covered in the report include: the major variables measured by each instrument, the data duration and frequency, data accuracy, calibration and corrections, the location the data is stored, and the primary contact for the data.

This software supports GeoSCiML and was developed by GA and is called Fullmoon. This software will hosted on CSIRO's SEEGRID Site.

The role of Geoscience Australia (GA) is to provide first class geoscientific information and knowledge which enables government and community to make informed decisions about: - the exploitation of resources - the management of the environment - the safety of critical infrastructure and - the resultant wellbeing of all Australians. GA has two internal catalogues which hold metadata of significant value to external researchers. The catalogues include national collections of satellite images/datasets; geological and topographical maps of various scales; Maritime, Aboriginal Commission and Postcode boundary datasets, plus other geoscientific thematic maps and collections. Staff from GA and ANDS worked together to analyse the catalogues, map them to the ISO19115 metadata schema and provide a gap analysis to inform further development. The original intention was to cross walk the 19115 profile to RIF-CS and install an OAI-PMH harvest point. ANDS, however, was able to utilise funded work by AuScope by having an instance of GeoNetwork deployed in GA, which provides this capability and can be leveraged to expose this data at the same time. This mapping also allows data of relevance to other disciplines such as that relevant to marine research to be identified and appropriate feeds established. The more significant achievement for GA was that it is now able to dynamically map from two existing independent internal catalogues to a single standards compliant instance, without having to first create a single internal catalogue and then migrate metadata from various catalogues into it. This approach will be used for other data types where GA has several internal databases of the same data type. This poster explores the issues that confronted the team, the solutions developed and the opportunities that have arisen.

This report provides detailed descriptions (metadata) of 45 Australian marine environmental datasets that have been generated and collated by the Marine Biodiversity Hub as part of Theme 3 - National Ecosystems Knowledge, Project 1 - Shelf and Canyon Ecosystems Functions and Processes. The report also includes a map for each dataset to illustrate coverage and general spatial structure. The datasets contain both marine environmental and biological variables from diverse data sources and include both new and updated information. Among them, the national bathymetry grid and derived products, seabed sediment grids, seabed exposure (GEOMACS) parameters, water quality data, the national canyon dataset and connectivity layers were produced by Geoscience Australia. Other environmental and biological datasets are the outputs of oceanographic models and collections of various governmental and research organisations. These datasets are important for the success of marine biodiversity research in Theme 3 Project 1 in that they describe key aspects of Australian marine physical, geochemical and biological environments. The physical and geochemical datasets not only characterise the static seabed features but also capture the temporal variation and three-dimensional interactions within marine ecosystems. The biological datasets represent a unique collection of fish and megafauna data available at the national scale. Together, these marine environmental datasets enhance our understanding of large-scale ecological processes driving marine biodiversity patterns. However, we should be aware of the uncertainties and potential errors exist in these datasets due to limitations of data collection and processing methods. Data quality issues of individual datasets have been documented in this report where possible.

Over the past 10 years, Australia has maintained 65-85% self-sufficiency in oil and better than 100% suffiency in gas. This has generated significant societal benefits in terms of employment, balance of payments, and revenue. However the decline of the super-giant Gippsland fields, discovery of smaller oil pools on the Northwest Shelf, and the increasing reliance on condensate to sustain our liquids supply sharpens the focus on Australia's need to increase exporation and discover more oil. Australia is competing in the global market place for exploration funds but as it is relatively under-explored there is a need to simulate interest through access to pre-competitive data and information. Public access to exploration and production data is a key plank in Australian promotion of petroleum exploration acreage. Access results from legislation that initially subsidised exploration in return for lodgement and public availability of exploration and production (E&P) data. Today publicly available E&P data ranges from digital seismic tapes, to core and cuttings samples from wells, and access to relational databases, including organic geochemistry, biostratigraphy, and shows information. Seismic information is being progressively consolidated to high density media. Under the Commonwealth Government?s Spatial Information and Data Access Policy, announced in 2001, company data is publicly available at the cost of transfer, after a relatively brief confidentiality period. In addition, pre-competitive regional studies relating to petroleum prospectivity, undertaken by Government, and databases and spatial information is free over the Internet, further reducing the cost of exploration. In cooperation with the Australian States and the Northern Territory, we are working towards jointly presenting Australian opportunities through the Geoscience Portal (http://www.geoscience.gov.au) and a virtual one stop data repository. The challenge now is to translate data availability to increased exploration uptake, through client information, and through ever-improving on-line access.

PIMS, or the Petroleum Information Management System, is a database that keeps track of 376 000 seismic survey tapes and 2 800 petroleum well logs housed at the National Archives facility, at Chester Hill (formerly Villawood), Sydney - the largest tape archive in the southern hemisphere. PIMS is managed by AGSO's Petroleum Resources Program, which was formerly part of the Bureau of Resource Sciences. The survey tapes and well logs are basic data from petroleum exploration. They are loged under the Petroleum (Submerged Lands) Act, and are publicly available as a stimulus to further exploration.