Legacy product - no abstract available

Geoscience Australia developed the guide with the Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism, Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts and state and territory governments. There were several rounds of public consultation including international consideration by the International Atomic Energy Agency and United States regulators. The guide outlines the best practice principles and approaches that apply generally to mining in Australia, before giving more detailed consideration to best practice environmental protection and regulation for in situ recovery (ISR) mining. It draws on guidelines and regulatory practices applying to uranium mining in South Australia - the only jurisdiction currently with experience of approval and regulation of ISR projects. This guide is not a regulatory document and it should be considered within existing Australian legal and governance frameworks relevant to the mining sector. Its purpose is to set out expectations for approval and regulation of in situ recovery uranium mining (ISR), in line with the Australian Government's policy to ensure that uranium mining, milling and rehabilitation is based on world best practice standards.

New 2D seismic data acquired in the Mentelle Basin by Geoscience Australia in 2008-09 has been used for a seismic facies study of the post-rift succession. The Mentelle Basin is a large deep to ultra deep-water, frontier basin located on Australia's southwestern margin about 200 km southwest of Perth. The study focused on the post-rift sequences deposited following the breakup between Australia and Greater India. Stratigraphic wells DSDP 258 and DSDP 264 provide age and lithological constraints on the upper portion of the post-rift succession down to mid-Albian strata. The depositional environment and lithology of the older sequences are based on analysis of the seismic facies, stratal geometries and comparisons to the age equivalent units in the south Perth Basin. Fourteen seismic facies were identified based on reflection continuity, amplitude and frequency, internal reflection configuration and external geometries. They range from high continuity, high amplitude, parallel sheet facies to low continuity, low amplitude, parallel, subparallel and chaotic sheet, wedge and basin-fill facies. Channel and channel-fill features are common in several facies as well as a mounded facies (probably contourite) and its associated ponded turbidite fill. A progradational sigmoidal to oblique wedge facies occurs at several stratigraphic levels in the section. A chaotic mound facies, probably comprising debrite deposits, has a localised distribution. Seismic facies analysis of the post-rift sequences in the Mentelle Basin has contributed to a better understanding of the depositional history and sedimentation processes in the region, as well as provided additional constraints on regional and local tectonic events.

Poster for the Australian Earth Sciences Convention 2010.

Legacy product - no abstract available

Flyer to be carried by GA officers while undertaking a building survey in the Adelaide Central Business District.

Flyer to promote careers at Geoscience Australia

The modelling of severe wind gust is a fundamental part of any wind hazard assessment. Statistical modelling approaches are usually used to describe the probability of occurrences of extreme winds. The classical extreme value theory based on the generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution and the more recently developed peaks over threshold (POT) and the use of generalized Pareto distribution (GPD) are investigated. Practical issues such as the threshold selection and model validation are also discussed. Severe wind gust models were developed for a number of locations in Perth. Estimates of 50 and 100 year return period events are compared with estimates published by the Standards Australia for Perth (Region A), which are based on a single site. For coast sites, the predicted wind gust speeds are similar to those published by the Standards, while the inland sites have smaller wind gust speeds.

This presentation summarises results of 3d petroleum systems modelling of the northwestern Ceduna Sub-basin, Bight Basin, offshore southern Australia, using Schlumberger Petromod software. The model builds on two 2D models for the northern and central Ceduna Sub-basin published in Totterdell et al. (2008).

One of Australia's most serious natural disasters occurred when an earthquake shook Newcastle in New South Wales, leaving 13 people dead and injuring more than 160. The damage bill has been estimated at around A$4 billion dollars, including an insured loss of over A$1 billion. All the result of just a few seconds of earthquake ground shaking at 10:27am on 28 December 1989 (McCue and others, 1990). The consequences of this moderate earthquake to Newcastle (Pop. 300 000), an industrial city on Australia's east coast, could so easily have been avoided with the hindsight of history and the application of relatively inexpensive earthquake engineering principles.