In October 2019, opportunistic mapping and imagery of the Wessel Marine Park on the RV Investigator revealed a localised band of high biodiversity linked to a unique and culturally important geomorphological feature in the otherwise uniform seascape prevalent in the Wessel Marine Park. Our findings help contribute to an understanding of the values of a northern marine park, including an inventory of communities and habitats as well as potential relationships to geomorphic features and culturally important sites. This has national significance to the implementation of the northern marine park management plan, as well as informing future monitoring programs in northern Australia. <b>Citation:</b> Przeslawski R, Beaman R, Fava L, Nichol S, Woehler E, Yule C (2020). Wessel Marine Park: Post-Survey Report for INV2019T02. Report to the National Environmental Science Program, <i>Marine Biodiversity Hub</i>. Geoscience Australia.

Wetlands around the world provide crucial ecosystem services and are under increasing pressure from multiple sources including climate change, changing flow and flooding regimes, and encroaching human populations. The Landsat satellite imagery archive provides a unique observational record of how wetlands have responded to these impacts during the last three decades. Information stored within this archive has historically been difficult to access due to its petabyte-scale and the challenges in converting Earth observation data into biophysical measurements that can be interpreted by wetland ecologists and catchment managers. This paper introduces the Wetlands Insight Tool (WIT), a workflow that generates WIT plots that present a multidecadal view of the biophysical cover types contained within individual Australian wetlands. The WIT workflow summarises Earth observation data over 35 years at 30 m resolution within a user-defined wetland boundary to produce a time-series plot (WIT plot) of the percentage of the wetland covered by open water, areas of water mixed with vegetation (‘wet’), green vegetation, dry vegetation, and bare soil. We compare these WIT plots with documented changes that have occurred in floodplain shrublands, alpine peat wetlands, and lacustrine and palustrine wetlands, demonstrating the power of satellite observations to supplement ground-based data collection in a diverse range of wetland types. The use of WIT plots to observe and manage wetlands enables improved evidence-based decision making. <b>Citation:</b> Dunn, B., Ai, E., Alger, M.J. et al. Wetlands Insight Tool: Characterising the Surface Water and Vegetation Cover Dynamics of Individual Wetlands Using Multidecadal Landsat Satellite Data. <i>Wetlands</i><b> 43</b>, 37 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-023-01682-7

Background Wetlands provide a wide range of ecosystem services including improving water quality, carbon sequestration, as well as providing habitat for fish, amphibians, reptiles and birds. Managing wetlands in Australia is challenging due to competing pressures for water availability and highly variable climatic settings. The Wetlands Insight Tool (Ramsar Wetlands) has been developed to provide catchment managers, environmental water holders, andwetlands scientists a consistent historical baseline of wetlands dynamics from 1987 onwards. The Wetlands Insight Tool (Ramsar Wetlands) is available online through the DEA Mapswebsite. The Ramsar Wetlands of Australia Dataset is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Australia Licence. We created individual wetland polygons from the multipart Ramsar polygons in the dataset. The 6 Australian Ramsar Sites in external territories are excluded as they are outside of Australia’s satellite data footprint. What this product offers The Wetlands Insight Tool (Ramsar Wetlands) summarises how the amount of water, green vegetation, dry vegetation and bare soil varies over time within eachwetland boundary.It provides the user with the ability to compare how the wetland is behaving now with how it has behaved in the past. This allows users to identify how changes in water availability have affected the wetland.It achieves this bypresentinga combined view of Water Observations from Space (DEA Water Observations), Tasseled Cap Wetness (DEA Wetness Percentiles) and Fractional Cover (DEA Fractional Cover) measurements from the Landsat series of satellites, summarised as a stacked line plot to show how that wetlandhas changed over time.

The values and distribution patterns of the strontium (Sr) isotope ratio 87Sr/86Sr in Earth surface materials is of use in the geological, environmental and social sciences. Ultimately, the 87Sr/86Sr ratio of any mineral or biological material reflects its value in the rock that is the parent material to the local soil and everything that lives in and on it. In Australia, there are few large-scale surveys of 87Sr/86Sr available, and here we report on a new, low-density dataset using 112 catchment outlet (floodplain) sediment samples covering 529,000 km2 of inland southeastern Australia (South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria). The coarse (<2 mm) fraction of bottom sediment samples (depth ~0.6-0.8 m) from the National Geochemical Survey of Australia were fully digested before Sr separation by chromatography and 87Sr/86Sr determination by multicollector-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry. The results show a wide range of 87Sr/86Sr values from a minimum of 0.7089 to a maximum of 0.7511 (range 0.0422). The median 87Sr/86Sr (± robust standard deviation) is 0.7199 (± 0.0112), and the mean (± standard deviation) is 0.7220 (± 0.0106). The spatial patterns of the Sr isoscape observed are described and attributed to various geological sources and processes. Of note are the elevated (radiogenic) values (≥~0.7270; top quartile) contributed by (1) the Palaeozoic sedimentary country rock and (mostly felsic) igneous intrusions of the Lachlan geological region to the east of the study area; (2) the Palaeoproterozoic metamorphic rocks of the central Broken Hill region; both these sources contribute fluvial sediments into the study area; and (3) the Proterozoic to Palaeozoic rocks of the Kanmantoo, Adelaide, Gawler and Painter geological regions to the west of the area; these sources contribute radiogenic material to the region mostly by aeolian processes. Regions of low 87Sr/86Sr (≤~0.7130; bottom quartile) belong mainly to (1) a few central Murray Basin catchments; (2) some Darling Basin catchments in the northeast; and (3) a few Eromanga geological region-influenced catchments in the northwest of the study area. The new spatial dataset is publicly available through the Geoscience Australia portal (https://portal.ga.gov.au/restore/cd686f2d-c87b-41b8-8c4b-ca8af531ae7e).

World elevation map that shows the shape of the major tectonic plates. Physical print in colour for giveaway. When completed the 'Tectonic Plates Jigsaw Puzzle' will fit on a desk. Suitable for primary Years 5-6 and secondary Years 7-12.

The Exploring for the Future program Virtual Roadshow was held on 7 July and 14-17 July 2020. The Minerals session of the roadshow was held on 14 July 2020 and consisted of the following presentations: Introduction - Richard Blewett Preamble - Karol Kzarnota Surface & Basins or Cover - Marie-Aude Bonnardot Crust - Kathryn Waltenberg Mantle - Marcus Haynes Zinc on the edge: New insights into sediment-hosted base metals mineral system - David Huston Scale reduction targeting for Iron-Oxide-Copper-Gold in Tennant Creek and Mt Isa - Anthony Schofield and Andrew Clark Economic Fairways and Wrap-up - Karol Czarnota

This animation shows how Surface Magnetic Resonance (SMR) Surveys are conducted. It is part of a series of Field Activity Technique Engagement Animations. The target audience are the communities that are impacted by GA's data acquisition activities. There is no sound or voice over. The 2D animation includes a simplified view of what SMR equipment looks like, what the equipment measures and how scientists use the data.

Our knowledge of life at the Antarctic sea-bed has increased in the past decades with increasing ship-based surveys and monitoring sites, new technologies and data sharing. However, seafloor habitats and their communities exhibit high spatial variability and heterogeneity that limits our ability to assess the state of the Southern Ocean benthos on larger scales. The seafloor communities that inhabit the Antarctic shelf are often diversity hotspots. These habitats are important in the generation of ‘blue carbon’ and habitat for commercial fish species, for this reason we focus on these habitats. Many Southern Ocean seafloor habitats and their communities seem to be especially vulnerable to certain drivers of change including increasing ocean temperatures, iceberg scour, sea-ice melt, ocean acidification, fishing pressures, pollution and non-indigenous species. Some of the most vulnerable areas include those experiencing rapid regional warming and increased iceberg-scouring e.g. the West Antarctic Peninsula; where human activities and environmental conditions increase the potential for the establishment of non-indigenous species e.g. sub-Antarctic islands and tourist destinations and areas with fishing activities e.g. around South Georgia, Heard and MacDonald Islands. Vulnerable species include calcifying species susceptible to increasing ocean acidity as well as slow-growing habitat forming species that can be damaged by fishing gears e.g. sponges, bryozoan and coral species. Management regimes can protect seafloor habitats and key species from fishing activities but only if they consider specific traits, such as longevity, food availability, their physiological adaptation and rare or common occurrences. Ecosystem-based management practices and long-term protected areas may be the most effective in the preservation of vulnerable seafloor habitats. However, action is needed to reduce carbon emissions to limit the impact of increasing ocean temperatures and ocean acidification. We focus on outlining seafloor responses to drivers of change observed to date and projections for the future. We discuss the need for action to preserve seafloor habitats under climate change and fishing pressures. <b>Citation:</b> Brasier MJ, Barnes D, Bax N, Brandt A, Christianson AB, Constable AJ, Downey R, Figuerola B, Griffiths H, Gutt J, Lockhart S, Morley SA, Post AL, Van de Putte A, Saeedi H, Stark JS, Sumner M and Waller CL (2021) Responses of Southern Ocean Seafloor Habitats and Communities to Global and Local Drivers of Change. <i>Front. Mar. Sci.</i> 8:622721. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2021.622721

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.

This animation shows how groundwater sampling is conducted. It is part of a series of Field Activity Technique Engagement Animations. The target audience are the communities that are impacted by GA's data acquisition activities. There is no sound or voice over. The 2D animation includes a simplified view of what groundwater sampling equipment looks like, what the equipment measures and how scientists use the data.