Internal advice on tsunami, earthquake and severe wind hazards at Daru, derived from large-scale hazard assessments. See HPRM: D2021-44611. This advice was provided to the Australia Pacific Climate Partnership as part of GA's contributions to the program. (In confidence report to APCP, not for distribution)

This document sets out the five year strategy for the marine geoscience program at Geoscience Australia, for the period 2018-2023. This strategy delivers to Geoscience Australia's Strategy 2028 in the area of 'Managing Australia's marine jurisdictions to support sustainable use of our marine environment.' The strategy includes four key activities: (1) National Coordination of Seabed Mapping; (2) Data Acquisition for Marine and Coastal Baselines and Monitoring; (3) Marine Geoscience Data Accessibility, and; (4) Marine Geoscience Advice.

This report presents geoscientific advice for the management of Antarctic Specially Protected Area (ASPA) No. 143, Marine Plain in the Vestfold Hills, East Antarctica. The advice is based on expert field observations and Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) imagery of the ASPA as well as a review of observations and reports from previous visitors and scientific literature on human disturbance in polar environments. This report builds on an earlier report (McLennan 2017) which was written prior to any site visits by Geoscience Australia scientists. The advice addresses questions raised by the Australian Antarctic Division regarding the ASPA management plan, particularly relating to access via foot and helicopter, and the condition of two fossil sites. Key assumptions include that the rate of visitors to Marine Plain in the next decade will remain low and that the remaining faunal fossil specimens will stay in place. If there is a large increase in visitor numbers to Marine Plain or the fossil fauna are intended to be removed, further advice should be sought about the impacts to Marine Plain values.

The Preparing Australia Program (PAP) tropical cyclone data analysis explores the relative vulnerability of Local Government Areas (LGA, Australian Statistical Geography Standard, 2020) to tropical cyclone-related winds. This relies on a combination of the hazard (magnitude and likelihood) and the vulnerability (level of damage for given hazard level).

Abstract submitted for presentation to European Geosciences Union General Assembly, April, 2019

In 2021, a total of 21 areas were released for offshore petroleum exploration. They are located in the Bonaparte Basin, Browse Basin, Northern Carnarvon Basin, Otway Basin, Sorell Basin and Gippsland Basin. Despite COVID-19 negatively impacting the industry, participation in the acreage release nomination process was again robust, however, as has been the case in recent years, industry interest is focussed on those areas that are close to existing discoveries and related infrastructure. In tune with the Australian government’s resource development strategy, the areas being offered for exploration are likely to supply extra volumes of natural gas, both for export to SE Asian markets and domestically to meet the forecasted shortage in eastern Australia. According to the 2019 implementation of a modified release process, only one period for work program bidding has been scheduled. The closing date for all submissions is Thursday, 3 March 2022. Geoscience Australia continues to support industry activities by acquiring, interpreting and integrating pre-competitive datasets that are made freely available in the context of the agency’s regional petroleum geological studies. As part of a multidisciplinary study, new data, including regional seismic and petroleum systems modelling for the Otway Basin is now available. Also, a stratigraphic/sedimentological review of the upper Permian to Early Triassic succession in the southern Bonaparte Basin has been completed, the results of which are being presented at this APPEA conference. Large seismic and well data sets, submitted under the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006 (OPGSSA) are made available through the National Offshore Petroleum Information Management System (NOPIMS). Additional data and petroleum related information can be accessed through Geoscience Australia’s data repository. Appeared in The APPEA Journal 61(2) 294-324, 2 July 2021

Internal advice on tsunami, earthquake and severe wind hazards for the Kavieng Port region, derived from large-scale hazard assessments. This advice (refer TRIM D2021-55554) was provided to the Australia Pacific Climate Partnership (APCP) as part of Geoscience Australia's (GA's) contributions to the program. (In confidence report to APCP, not for distribution)

Fractional cover data can be used to identify large scale patterns and trends and inform evidence based decision making and policy on topics including wind and water erosion risk, soil carbon dynamics, land management practices and rangeland condition. This information is used by policy agencies, natural and agricultural land resource managers, and scientists to monitor land conditions over large areas over long time frames. Fractional Cover (FC), developed by the Joint Remote Sensing Research Program, is a measurement that splits the landscape into three parts, or fractions: - green (leaves, grass, and growing crops) - brown (branches, dry grass or hay, and dead leaf litter) - bare ground (soil or rock) Digital Earth Australia (DEA) uses Fractional Cover to characterise every 30 m square of Australia for any point in time from 1987 to today.

This service provides Estimates of Geological and Geophysical Surfaces (EGGS). The data comes from cover thickness models based on magnetic, airborne electromagnetic and borehole measurements of the depth of stratigraphic and chronostratigraphic surfaces and boundaries.

A review of mineral exploration trends, activities and discoveries in Australia in 2019-2020