16 December 2008
An historic cross jurisdictional milestone has been achieved with the release of the new Surface Geology Map of Australia.
In a co-operative program with the State and Northern Territory Geological Surveys, Geoscience Australia has compiled a 1:1 million scale database which provides a seamless representation of Australia's geology over the whole continent and Tasmania.
The digital map has been developed by a team of geologists and cartographers at Geoscience Australia working in partnership with geologists from the State and Territory agencies. The team standardised and matched the edges of geological maps which have been published by State, Territory and Commonwealth agencies over the past 40 years.
The Chief Executive Officer of Geoscience Australia, Dr Neil Williams, said that in the past, geological information frequently failed to match up across jurisdictional boundaries because of differences in data acquisition methods and the development of new geological understanding.
"With its seamless format, the map will be a valuable baseline dataset for regional and national evaluations of resource potential as well as for environmental management and land use decision making," Dr Williams said.
"Its development has been a truly remarkable collaboration and provides a clear illustration that co-operation and planning across jurisdictions can produce accurate information which will benefit all Australia," he said.
"The fully integrated depiction of features across borders will help mineral explorers, mining companies and other resource and environmental managers to better understand and interpret regional geology," Dr Williams said.
For more information read the media release [PDF 62KB] and download free the Surface Geology Map of Australia.
12 December 2008
Visitors to our website will find it easier to use and access information in future through the adoption of the Creative Commons licence.
These licences are easy to understand, royalty-free, modular, off the shelf licences which have been customised for the legal codes of more than 50 countries, including Australia.
Geoscience Australia is the first Australian Government agency to implement the licence, which is being considered also by the Queensland and Victorian Governments, Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Bureau of Meteorology and others.
Among the products available through the Geoscience Australia website with Creative Commons licences are MODIS data and the Australian Mines Atlas.
Other material to be issued shortly under Creative Commons licences includes the GeoMAP 250K product, digitised BMR records and educational material about tsunami.
Adoption of the licences has been made in response to requests from clients for the use and re-use of Geoscience Australia data to be simplified and made more transparent.
As it adopted by other organisations, the Creative Commons licence is expected to make it easier for users to merge spatial and geoscientific data obtained from different sources.
24 November 2008
The survey, which was carried out in the Cloncurry-Croydon region by Geoscience Australia in collaboration with the Geological Survey of Queensland, led to the discovery of two major sutures, or fault zones which mark the boundaries of a previously unknown geologic province.
This province forms the basement to the Millungera Basin, which also was unknown prior to the survey. The new province, which is about 100 kilometres east of Cloncurry and extends over 15 000 square kilometres, is concealed by thinner, younger rocks and is considered to have potential for geothermal energy and possibly petroleum resources.
The eastern boundary of the new province is particularly unusual. It has west-dipping seismic reflections in the mantle associated with a step that increases by around six kilometres the depth of the Moho. Elsewhere in the world, similar features have been interpreted as fossilised subduction zones which provide a unique window into ancient tectonic processes.
Interpretations of the seismic data also revealed that the western sutures show similarities to the geological settings of the world-class Olympic Dam copper-gold-uranium deposit in South Australia.
The discoveries were made as part of Geoscience Australia's $59 million Onshore Energy Security Program and the Queensland Government's Smart Mining and Smart Exploration initiatives to provide pre-competitive data to the mining and explorations industries.
More information can be obtained from the Minister's Media Release.