Australia-wide geoscience

Australia-wide geoscience provides the building blocks to better understand what lies on and beneath the land surface and seabed. By improving the quality and completeness of this information, we can realise Australia’s resource potential and accelerate the exploration, development, and responsible management of our natural resources.

We will achieve this through:

Compilation

We will collate, curate and interpret existing government, industry and academic geoscience data to improve accessibility and maximise its use.

Offshore Mapping

The Offshore Mapping project will collate and deliver an Australia-wide series of national and regional-scale foundation seabed data products derived from seabed surveys conducted in Australian waters and remotely sensed data. Bathymetric survey data will be integrated with the latest elevation models to provide a seamless interface between land and sea in the AusBathyTopo gridded surfaces. The AusBathyTopo grids will be analysed, along with ancillary data products (sediment, backscatter, sub-bottom profiling, and legacy geophysical data) to develop seabed feature maps. Seabed feature maps will provide a nationally consistent characterisation of the seabed to provide assessments for offshore applications.

These foundation data products will, in turn, be used by the Offshore Energy project to deliver tools that will support decision-making for offshore renewable energy development, as well as by the Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage and Hydrogen Assessments Projects.

Major release:

• 2029 – national seabed map series

Earth Materials Characterisation

The Earth Materials Characterisation project will collect, collate and deliver national-scale datasets derived from measurements of rock and earth material samples. Spanning geochemistry, mineralogy, isotopic composition, geological age and physical properties, these datasets will provide ground-truthing for remotely sensed measurements, such as geophysics and models including mineral potential maps. These datasets will also be used as inputs into National Resource Assessments and provide foundational data for Deep Dive projects.

Major release:

• 2030 – national compilation of industry geochemistry

Collection

We will collect new geophysical, geological and geochemical data to increase understanding of our continent.

Seismic and Magnetotellurics

The Seismic and Magnetotellurics project will lay the foundations for a national framework of Australia’s geophysical properties, potentially extending offshore into Australia’s marine jurisdiction. National and regional-scale geophysics underpins our understanding of the geological properties of the Australian continent, providing foundational inputs for the four components of the Resourcing Australia’s Prosperity initiative. Outputs of this project will be delivered under the passive seismic, magnetotelluric and regional active seismic activities.

Major release

• 2027 – passive seismic (AusArray National 2 degree)

Gravity, Radiometric, Airborne Electromagnetics and Magnetics

Currently ~65% of Australia is covered by 20 km line spaced Airborne Electromagnetic data, ~50% has gravity station spacing >4 km and ~70% is covered by magnetic and radiometric data at 400 m line spacing or better. The Gravity, Radiometric, Airborne Electromagnetics and Magnetics project provides an opportunity to increase the coverage of each of these datasets at the target resolution and provide national-scale geophysical datasets with uniform resolution and quality to enable consistent results for all dependent projects nationwide.

Major releases:

• 2029 – Updated national-scale airborne magnetic and radiometric datasets
• 2032 – Improved Australian Fundamental Gravity Network
• 2034 – Complete acquisition of AusAEM, the national airborne electromagnetic dataset

Interpretive products

We will combine and analyse geoscience data to model and interpret Australia’s geology.

Onshore National Geology

The Onshore National Geology project will build on new large-scale data acquisition, advances in big data analytics, as well as compilation and maintenance of national data repositories. The project will deliver a quantified knowledge in three dimensions of the surface and subsurface geology that underpins our natural resources potential.

Major releases:

• 2025 –
• 2031 – national 3D geology map of Australia

Innovation

We will develop new data systems, standards, and technology to ensure products provide future value.