Geoscience Australia

🎉 What a year! 🗺️ We finished the Exploring for the Future program, with 8 years of hard work building a solid foundation for the Resourcing Australia’s Prosperity initiative. 📈 We launched the Digital Atlas of Australia, bringing high quality government spatial data to all Australians. 🛰️ We committed to bringing the benefits of Landsat Next’s revolutionary Earth observation data right here to Australia through the signing of a landmark agreement. 👊 We collaborated and partnered with wonderful organisations here in Australia and around the world and shared our love of Earth Science at conferences and events and met lifelong friends and colleagues. 🎄We’re looking forward to a bright and busy 2025, working towards our shared goal of building a better future for all Australians. Wishing you a happy and safe festive season from us all at Geoscience Australia. 🚪Our indoor public spaces at our Canberra headquarters will be closed from today, 24 December 2024 and re-open on Friday 3 January 2025. We’ll see you then!

[NEW RELEASE] 3D model of the 2024 ‘Major crustal boundaries of Australia’ dataset! Building on our 2D GIS dataset from earlier this year, this model visualises the structural features of Australia's crustal boundaries to help understand the nation’s tectonic and geodynamic evolution through time. This evolution allows a better understanding of how the Australian continent was constructed and how these boundaries have controlled mineral deposit formation. The dataset also provides a 3D structural framework for national geophysical arrays such as AusLAMP and AusArray. Using this model, we can identify potential areas for mineral and energy resources as it highlights ancient cratonic margins and potential mantle tapping magma and fluid pathways. Download the data 👉 https://bit.ly/4fkpLEU 📸 3D model of the Major Crustal Boundaries of Australia 2024 Edition. Red lines are the traces of seismic lines utilised to build the model, with deep crustal seismic reflection lines shown. Vertical to horizontal scale is ~5:1. #ResourcingAustraliasProsperity

We want to do everything we can to help reduce the risk and impact of natural hazards and disasters, and one of the best ways we can do that is to work together with our international colleagues. This week we’ve had a great visit with our friends from Indonesian Agency for Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics (BMKG) to get our heads together and collaborate on earthquake monitoring, tsunami warning, and hazard and impact assessment. We’ve had a long-standing relationship with BMKG on tsunami early warning and disaster risk reduction, through the Intergovernmental Coordination Group for the Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning and Mitigation System, and disaster risk reduction programs we’ve implemented for the Australian government. It's been 20 years since the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, and our agencies continue to work together to address our shared tsunami risk in the Indian Ocean. This includes sharing seismic data and working together to support earthquake detection for tsunami early warning. This has been a great opportunity to really get into the details of earthquake monitoring and seismic hazard assessment. We discussed using earthquake monitoring and ShakeMap products for real-time earthquake alerts, our work on seismic hazard assessment, recent advances in how we model tsunami inundation, and using geological evidence of prehistoric earthquakes and tsunamis as part of the way we assess risks. We are fortunate to have a diverse group of friends and colleagues from around the world who are committed to enhancing safety both domestically and internationally. By working together, we can achieve greater success and make a significant impact. Find out more about our work with earthquakes, tsunamis and other hazards: https://bit.ly/3DyUNeT

How likely are you to experience an earthquake? The latest update to the National Seismic Hazard Assessment sheds new light on the areas of Australia most likely to experience an earthquake. This is the first update to the national assessment since 2018 and we’ve identified Darwin and the eastern highlands of Victoria as areas where there is a higher risk of strong ground shaking. As our senior seismologist Dr Trevor Allen explains, this doesn’t mean that there are more earthquakes or that our earthquakes are getting stronger. It means that we’ve got a better understanding of the risks that are associated with earthquakes. Press play to watch the video now, then read more here: https://bit.ly/3P0duuE

Have you heard of Ginan? Ginan is our home-grown and free to use open-source toolkit that determines precise point positioning with centimetre level accuracy based on global navigation satellite system (GNSS) observations. Within the National Positioning Infrastructure Capability (NPIC) ecosystem, Ginan is used to analyse the data streams that come from the NPIC stations across the country. It generates the products we need for positioning, such as satellite clock and orbit products. Ginan is used by academia, government, industry, and technology developers to enhance positioning accuracy and drive innovation. 👉▶️ Press play for a Ginan demo from our National Location Infrastructure branch head, Martine Woolf!

We are excited to be helping harmonise stable isotope data to be shared, discovered and reused through Isotopes.Au. Isotopes.Au is a new data platform that connects isotope data from federal government science agencies into a single national collection. It will support the verification of Australian agricultural and food product claims and environmental credentials, by bringing together isotopic data from surface water, groundwater, soils, gases and plants. These isotopes provide unique chemical signatures or ‘fingerprints’, that can be used to tackle challenges in tracing water, food, biosecurity and forensics, while also verifying the geographical origin of food products and the sustainability of food production and distribution. Led by CSIRO, with co-investment from the Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC), this project brings together expertise from Geoscience Australia, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) and the National Measurement Institute, Australia Check out the Isotopes.Au platform here 👉 https://bit.ly/4gbrH3G #foodscience #isotopes

📅 Join IPAA ACT for a Valedictory: Public sector science leadership with our retiring CEO, Dr James Johnson this Thursday, 12 December! James will tell his story - from working in the mining and mineral exploration industries to becoming the leader of Australia’s pre-eminent public sector geoscience organisation. Learn about some of the amazing initiatives we lead and how you interact with them every day, hear career development and leadership insights and get tips for effective community engagement! Register today 👉 https://bit.ly/4iu2cfy #IPAAEvents #OurAPS #Proud

We will go to the ends of the Earth in our efforts to help keep people safe! Thanks to the support of the Australian Antarctic Division, our technical experts Garrick Madge and Andrew Hislop have adventured across the great frozen frontier to undertake maintenance and refurbishment work on our infrasound monitoring station at Australia’s Davis Station in Antarctica. Davis Station hosts part of Australia’s commitment to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. Along with three other infrasound stations for which we are responsible, the Davis infrasound station listens for atmospheric disturbances from both natural and non-natural sources such as volcanic eruptions, meteors, and large explosions such as nuclear tests. Our infrasound sites are spread between Western Australia, Tasmania, Cocos-Keeling Islands and Antarctica. The significant distance these sites monitor collectively make up a huge part of the global monitoring network. Garrick and Andrew have carried out vital work that will ensure the Davis infrasound station can continue to provide data, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We are very grateful to be able to collaborate with the Australian Antarctic Division. Their RSV Nuyina made this visit possible, ensuring we can deliver quality monitoring to Australia and the entire globe. Want to know more about nuclear monitoring? Check it out: https://bit.ly/3CQPJlV Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization - CTBTO 📷 Ready to get to work, Davis Station 📷 Helicopters bring important equipment to the station 📷 Walking to the site across snowy, rocky terrain 📷 Maintenance work in the Antarctic

Check out Australia’s 3.5 billion years of geological history in less than 15 minutes! Utilising publicly available geochronology and mineral deposit datasets we’ve developed three new video animations that illustrate the history of Australia’s magmatism (ages of igneous rocks) and mineralisation. Tracing this activity across the continent reveals the long and episodic history of the Australian continent, and its wealth of mineral resources. Press play for a history of Australian magmatism in less than 2 minutes, and access Australia’s mineral deposits and commodities through time, or a combination of mineral deposits and magmatism in the comments. 👇

🛰️📡🤖 How can a robot paint lines on a sports field? Easy! Using our high accuracy positioning infrastructure, these Tiny Mobile Robots utilise centimetre accurate positioning to mark lines on a sports field... within 1cm every time. This accuracy is made possible through our Positioning Australia program’s National Positioning Infrastructure Capability (NPIC). NPIC provides access to the infrastructure needed so that users do not need to invest in their own base stations. This ensures that consistent, fit-for-purpose positioning data and services are available to government, industry, and academia. High accuracy positioning technologies are embedded across many industry sectors, helping grow our food, build our roads, and keep our communities safe. See these robots in action ▶️ 👇 and learn more about NPIC 👉 https://bit.ly/3r3NeTI. Aptella TinyMobileRobots