This map is part of a series which comprises 50 maps which covers the whole of Australia at a scale of 1:1 000 000 (1cm on a map represents 10km on the ground). Each standard map covers an area of 6 degrees longitude by 4 degrees latitude or about 590 kilometres east to west and about 440 kilometres from north to south. These maps depict natural and constructed features including transport infrastructure (roads, railway airports), hydrography, contours, hypsometric and bathymetric layers, localities and some administrative boundaries, making this a useful general reference map.

To be included in the conference proceedings, expanding on abstract submitted for oral presentation (Geocat No. 73253)

Geoscience Australia has recently completed a survey searching for evidence of natural hydrocarbon seepage in the offshore northern Perth Basin, off Western Australia. The survey formed part of a regional assessment of the basin's petroleum prospectivity in support of ~17,000 sq km of frontier exploration acreage release in the region in 2011. Multibeam bathymetry, sub-bottom profiler, sidescan sonar and echosounder data were acquired to map seafloor and water column features and characterise the shallow sub-surface sediments. A remotely operated vehicle (ROV) was used to observe and record evidence of seepage on the seafloor. 71 sediment grabs and 28 gravity cores were collected and are currently being analysed for headspace gas, high molecular weight biomarkers and infaunal content. Survey data identified an area of high 'seepage' potential in the northernmost part of the study area. Recent fault reactivation and amplitude anomalies in the shallow strata correlate with raised, high-backscatter regions and pockmarks on the seafloor. A series of hydroacoustic flares identified with the sidescan sonar may represent gas bubbles rising through the water column. The ROV underwater video footage identified a dark-coloured fluid in 500 metres water depth proximal to the sidescan flares which may be oil that naturally seeped from the seafloor. The integration of the datasets acquired during the marine survey is indicative of natural oil seepage and provides additional support for the presence of an active petroleum system on this part of the continental margin.

Cliff Head is the only producing oil field in the offshore Perth Basin. The lack of other exploration success has lead to a perception that the primary source rock onshore (Triassic Kockatea Shale) 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 reservoir below the Kockatea Shale regional seal. This prompted a trap integrity study into fault reactivation as a critical risk for hydrocarbon preservation. Breach of accumulations could be attributed to mid Jurassic extension, Valanginian breakup, margin tilt or Miocene structuring. The 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 mid 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 for fault strikes 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 Perth Basin.

The Capricorn Orogen in Western Australia records the punctuated Proterozoic assembly of the Pilbara and Yilgarn Cratons to form the West Australian Craton, and over one billion years of subsequent intracratonic reworking and basin formation. The orogen is over 1000 km long, and includes the passive margin deposits of both the Pilbara and Yilgarn Cratons, variably deformed and metamorphosed granitic and metasedimentary rocks of the Gascoyne Province, and very low- to low-grade metasedimentary rocks that overly these three tectonic units. Several mineral systems have been recognized in the orogen, including the world-class hematite iron-ore deposits of the Hamersley Basin. Other deposits include volcanic-hosted metal sulphide (VHMS) copper-gold deposits, orogenic lode-gold mineralization, various intrusion- and shear zone related base metal, tungsten, rare earth element, uranium and rare-metal deposits, and sediment hosted lead-copper-zinc mineralization. A recent 581 km long vibroseis-source, deep crustal seismic survey across the Capricon Orogen, has provided critical information on the architecture and geological evolution of the orogen. The transect has identified several distinct crustal terranes, each separated by moderately south-dipping suture zones, as well as other major structures that cut through the crust to the mantle. This improved understanding of the Capricorn Orogen has shown that many of the mineral occurrences within the orogen are spatially associated with these crustal-scale structures, which appear to have concentrated fluids, energy, and metals into specific sites in the Capricorn Orogen crust.

Modern geodetic techniques, especially the Global Positioning System (GPS) have allowed the accurate determination of the Earth's surface deformation of Glacial Isostatic Adjustment (GIA) associated with the ongoing stress release of the viscoelastic mantle after removal of the Late Pleistocene ice-sheets. We present an inversion analysis of the GPS derived deformation in North America to determine the effective lithosphere thickness and mantle viscosity, and examine whether the GPS observations can be fit with the ice-sheets and earth models, which were constructed and inferred mainly from geomorphologic/geological and relative sea level (RSL) data. The inversion computation is conducted for horizontal and vertical deformation, separately and jointly with two ice-sheet models (ANU-ICE and ICE-5G) developed independently by the Australian National University (ANU) and University of Toronto. The results from a simple three-layer earth model give a lithosphere thickness of 100~130km, an upper-mantle viscosity of 7~10 × 1020 Pa s, and a lower-mantle viscosity of 1.5~2.8 × 1021 Pa s. More sophisticated models such as introducing a transition zone of 400-670km failed to improve model fit, and the related parameters are mostly consistent with those of three-layer models. Further tests show that models of a thin-layer (30~40km) of large viscosity (~1022 Pa s) did not provide a better fit to the data. Ice scaling tests show that vertical deformation is more sensitive to local ice configuration. An increase of ice thickness by ~40% in Alberta and a reduction by ~50% between Saskatchewan and West Ontario are required to fit both horizontal and vertical deformation observed in Southwest Canada, whereas a reduction of ice thickness by ~25% for ANU-ICE produced an improved fit to both horizontal and vertical deformation in Quebec. Results from inversion analysis of two sub-datasets in Southwest and Southeast Canada revealed a 40% difference in the lower-mantle viscosity, which indicates that the lower-mantle in Southeast Canada could be relatively stronger. There is a discrepancy in the upper-mantle viscosity estimate between horizontal and vertical deformation: a low value (3~5 × 1020 Pa s) required by vertical deformation, and a high value (~9 × 1020 Pa s) favoured by horizontal deformation, which is due possibly to under-represented vertical deformation in the region as well as uncertainties in local ice topography. Overall, the earth model estimated from inversion analysis of GPS data in North America is consistent with the early inference from forward analyses of RSL data (e.g. Tushingham & Peltier, 1992): the lower-mantle viscosity is a factor of 1.5~2.0 larger than upper-mantle viscosity of ~1021 Pa s, reflecting that the main features of the earlier constructed North American ice-sheets (e.g. ICE-3G) are unchanged after two decade refinements.

Structures and structural (tectonic) processes provide critical controls on the evolution of hydrothermal mineral systems, both as pathways for fluid flow and as a trigger or driver. Not all these structures or tectonic processes are, however, necessarily obvious, particularly when the scale of study is restricted to a mineral deposit alone. This is because mineral deposits are just a `symptom' of a much larger system 'a mineral system' which involves enormous energy and mass fluxes. Using mineral systems thinking is a powerful tool for explorers. The scale of a mineral system is many orders of magnitude larger than the individual mineral deposit, and consequently, the system offers a far larger target than the deposit. For example, a deposit only 500 m wide may have a fluid outflow zone many tens of kilometres wide, such as in the Eastern Goldfields. Similarly, the zone of depletion of the metal-rich source rock may be many tens of kilometres in extent, such as in Broken Hill. A mineral system is a generic concept. Here, I use an example from the gold mineral system of the Eastern Goldfields Superterrane of Western Australia to consider some of the less obvious, but nevertheless important, structures and their attendant processes, as well how to recognise them.

TBC

These datasets cover approximately 5030 sq km over all of the Scenic Rim Regional Council and were captured as part of the 2011 Scenic Rim LiDAR project. This project, undertaken by Terranean Mapping Technologies on behalf of the Queensland Government captured highly accurate elevation data using LiDAR technology. Available dataset formats (in 1 kilometre tiles) are: - Classified las (LiDAR Data Exchange Format where strikes are classified as ground, vegetation or building) - 1 metre Digital Elevation Model (DEM) in ASCII xyz - 1 metre Digital Elevation Model (DEM) in ESRI ASCII grid - 1 metre Digital Elevation Model (DEM) in ESRI GRID grid - 0.25 metre contours in ESRI Shape

In many areas of the world, vegetation dynamics in semi-arid floodplain environments have been seriously impacted by increased river regulation and groundwater use. In this study, the condition of two of Australia's iconic riparian and floodplain vegetation elements, River Red Gums (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) and Black Box (E. largiflorens) are examined in relation to differing hydraulic regimes. With increases in regulation along Murray-Darling Basin rivers, flood volume, seasonality and frequency have changed which has in turn affected the condition and distribution of vegetation. Rather than undertaking a field based assessment of tree health in response to current water regimes, this paper documents a remote sensing study that assessed historic response of vegetation to a range of different climatic and hydraulic regimes at a floodplain scale. This methodology innovatively combined high-resolution vegetation structural mapping derived from LiDAR data (Canopy Digital Elevation Model and Foliage Projected Cover) with 23 years of Landsat time-series data. Statistical summaries of Normalised Difference Vegetation Index values were generated for each spatially continuous vegetation structural class (e.g. stand of closed forest) for each Landsat scene. Consequently long-term temporal change in vegetation condition was assessed against different water regimes (drought, local rainfall, river bank full, overbank flow, and lake filling). Results provide insight into vegetation response to different water sources and overall water availability. Additionally, some inferences can be made about lag times associated with vegetation response and the duration of the response once water availability has declined (e.g. after floodwaters recede). This methodology should enable water managers to better assess the adequacy of environmental flows.