Climate change - Geological Society of Australia

The Geological Society 

of Australia Inc 

tag 

Newsletter Number 158 

March 2011 

Combating 

the water 

crisis 

see p26 

Past 

climate 

change 

see p29 

Hot 

planets 

see p33 

Australia’s water dilemma 

Climate change in the Quatertnary 

Is Mars warming up 

NEW: Geoscience tech reviews

The Australian Geologist 

Newsletter 158, March 2011 

Registered by Australia Post 

Publication No. PP243459/00091 

ISSN 0312 4711 

Managing Editor Sue Fletcher 

Deputy Editor Heather Catchpole 

Technical Editor Bill Birch 

Send contributions to tag@gsa.org.au 

Central Business Office 

Executive Director Sue Fletcher 

Suite 61, 104 Bathurst Street, 

Sydney NSW 2000 

Telephone (02) 9290 2194 

Fax (02) 9290 2198 

Email info@gsa.org.au 

GSA website www.gsa.org.au 

Design Alan Taylor, The Visible Word Pty Ltd 

Typesetting Joan Taylor, The Visible Word Pty Ltd 

Printed by Ligare Pty Ltd 

Distributed by Trade Mailing & Fulfilment Pty Ltd 

Combating 

Australia’s water crisis 

p26 

Kyle Horner sums up 

hydrogeology issues and 

innovations in Australia. 

Quaternary climate 

change p29 

Brad Pillans takes us through 

the geological record for 

climate change during the 

Quaternary. Image courtesy 

NASA/GRACE team/DLR/Ben Holt Sr. 


p33 

Graziella Caprarelli examines if 

Mars' climate is warming and 

if we can make links between 

the Earth's and Mars’ climate 

systems. Image courtesy NASA. 

FRONT 

COVER 

Groundwater stored in a holding 

pond in the lower 

Murrumbidgee. Flooding in the 

area affected soil erosion rates 

and swamped native vegetation; 

in the past, drought 

conditions have seen low flows 

and isolated pools. Australia’s 

river systems have some of the 

world’s most variable flows, and 

we must manage a complex 

hydrological system to identify 

and secure sources of fresh 

water for the future. 

Image courtesy Kyle Horner. 

Inset images courtesy Murray- 

Darling Basin Authority; NASA; 

Brad Pillans. 

22 From the President 

23 Editor’s Comment 

24 Society Update 

Business Report 

Membership Update 

Letters to the Editor 

From the AJES Editor’s Desk 

Education & Outreach 

Stratigraphic Column 

Heritage Matters 

15 News from the Divisions 

16 News from the Specialist Groups 

17 News 

24 Young Earth Science News 

36 ARC Grants 

40 Tech talk 

41 Book Reviews 

46 Calendar 

47 Office Bearers 

48 Publishing Details

From the President 

Over the past few months there have been widespread, 

devastating floods in eastern Australia — 

a catastrophe for the people affected and also for 

the nation, including the mining industry. On one ABC 

television news broadcast, a reporter interviewed a “fluvial 

geomorphologist”, the first time I have seen this particular, precise 

label applied to an Earth Science interviewee. Naturally, as 

a geomorphologist (in part) myself, I welcome this opportunity 

not only for the discipline to receive publicity, but also the 

opportunity for a suitably-qualified scientist to provide expert 

comment. It is a sad fact, but true, that, in many natural 

disasters, the public profile of Earth Scientists is raised and 

money for research becomes available. GSA members would 

doubtless recognise that preparedness for natural disasters, 

including earthquakes, floods, storms, tsunamis and landslides 

etc, is enhanced, in many instances, by geoscience research, but 

we need to sell that message more successfully to the wider 

community. 

Heavy rain in the Canberra region in December resulted in 

flooding in the Queanbeyan River catchment, a tributary of the 

Molonglo River that flows into Lake Burley Griffin. Huge 

numbers of trees were washed into the lake, forming large 

timber debris rafts that took weeks to clear. There was much 

local debate about the source of so much woody debris — was 

it from a recent willow-removal program which left excess 

dead woody material along the river banks Or was it just 

typical of a large flood event after many years of drought A 

fluvial geomorphologist might have usefully been consulted to 

investigate! In 1988, while I was living in New Zealand, 

Cyclone Bola caused massive floods in the North Island and 

trees were also in the news — many kauri trees were washed 

out of reserves and ended up on private property. Kauri is a 

prized and valuable timber, so land-owners were keen to profit 

from the unexpected windfall. At the time there were 

arguments about who owned the wood. I don’t recall how it 

was resolved, but I daresay it was lawyers rather than scientists 

that were employed to solve that case. 

In this issue, we report the 

results of the GSA poll of members, 

which produced a strong YES vote 

for the Society to have a statement 

on climate change. The GSA 

Executive will evaluate the full 

results of the poll, including comments provided by members, 

and undertake further member consultation in due course. Also 

in this issue of TAG is an extended summary of my talk ‘Climate 

change — a view from the Quaternary’, given to GSA Divisions 

over the past few months. As I have said previously, this is a 

personal view, but one that I hope will be informative to 

readers with an interest in the causes of climate change, 

whether natural or anthropogenic. 

Suggestions for the National Rock Garden continue to flow 

in and updates on progress will be given in each issue of TAG 

henceforth. Once again, I thank all members for their 

suggestions and encourage your continued interest and 

support. 

Geological T-shirts continue to come my way, including the 

two featured here, which were Christmas presents from family 

members. Both were purchased online, though I don’t have 

details of their respective sources. Perhaps we should have a 

GSA T-shirt or a National Rock Garden T-shirt — what do 

members think 

BRAD PILLANS 

President 

2 | TAG March 2011

Editor’s Comment 

Earlier this year, as flooding in Queensland and Victoria 

devastated communities, followed by Cyclone Yasi in far 

north Queensland and bushfires in Perth, many of our 

members will have experienced a difficult and traumatic start 

to the year. On behalf of the TAG community I would like to 

emphasise that our thoughts are with those members affected 

during this time. I was affected by the Canberra bushfires in 

2003 and it was a truly awful time. I hope that this period is 

now behind members and that you have weathered these 

events. 

Prior to the flooding I commissioned one of the GSA’s most 

enthusiastic communicators, Australian National University 

hydrogeologist Kyle Horner, to give us an update on water 

issues in the country. Geoscientists have a major role to play in 

many of the important issues facing our society and water is 

one of the key issues. You can read his report on p 26. 

As promised, GSA President Brad Pillans provides TAG with 

a feature based on his popular talks to Divisions throughout 

2010. Looking at past climate change in the Quaternary, this 

feature again emphasises the role Earth Scientists play in 

society’s big issues — whether you are an advocate of anthropogenic 

climate change or not, there is much of interest in this 

feature (p 29). Climate change is a controversial issue for Earth 

Scientists and much has been said about this in past issues of 

TAG. You can read the results of the GSA-conducted climate 

change poll on page 5 this issue. 

Also this issue, Graziella Caprarelli looks at whether we can 

make links between the Earth and Mars’ climate systems and 

whether Mars’ climate is warming. Look out also for an update 

on the National Rock Garden, the GSA’s ambitious and exciting 

endeavour to create a truly Australian ‘garden’ of rocks that 

promises to be a point of interest for National Capital tourists 

and science-lovers for years to come. The Earth Science History 

Group updates us on their exciting session on the history of 

geological mapping in Australia, and in a new column “Cam 

Bryan” takes us through the history of colour in geology. 

We have updates from the 

Victoria Division’s awards and postgraduate 

scholarship winners, and we 

introduce you to the first of our 

profiles of young geoscientists — 

if you’d like to feature in TAG send in an email with a one 

paragraph description of your work. We also begin a new 

section on geoscience technology reviews — we’d welcome 

suggestions and contributions on geoscience technology you'd 

like to review or see reviewed in TAG. As usual we have many 

book reviews; please do keep sending these in and we apologise 

for any delay in publication. 

This will be my last issue of TAG as I head off to undertake 

the role of Deputy Editor of the popular science magazine, 

Cosmos. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to the 

wonderful team at the GSA and externally who develop this 

magazine; Technical Editor extraordinaire Bill Birch, the team 

at the Visible Word, Alan and Joan Taylor and the team at the 

GSA office, especially Sue Fletcher who has been a 

personal inspiration and driving force behind our efforts in 

producing TAG and whose guidance and collaboration I have 

valued greatly for the past three years. Finally thanks to the 

members; I have been privileged to commune with you and look 

forward to keeping in touch! 

HEATHER CATCHPOLE 

Deputy Editor 

ISSUE COPY FINISHED INSERTS 

ART 

JUNE 2011 30 Apr 6 May 20 May 

SEPTEMBER 2011 29 Jul 8 Aug 15 Aug 

DECEMBER 2011 26 Oct 2 Nov 9 Nov 

MARCH 2012 28 Jan 3 Feb 2 Mar 

TAG March 2011|3

SocietyUpdate 

Business Report 

At the time of writing this report, Queensland, Victoria 

and Western Australia were recovering from floods, 

other parts of Australia had bushfires and I am 

reminded of Dorethea McKellar’s poem My Country (often 

mistakenly referred to as “I love a sunburnt country”). For our 

members who have experienced the harsher weather and the 

devastation of floods and fires, we have been thinking of you 

and hope the clean-up is finished. 

This issue of TAG is jam-packed with information for our 

members, with the usual enlightening columns, features on 

hydrogeology (Kyle Horner), Quaternary climate change (Brad 

Pillans) and Mars’ climate (Graziella Caprarelli), as well as the 

final report from Patricia Vickers-Rich on IGCP project 491 

(refer to the Books for Review on page 45 for details on the 

related publication, The Artist and the Scientists: bringing 

prehistory to life), a report on the December Climate Change 

poll, as well as our regular update on the National Rock Garden 

and the ARC Grants. 

We also highlight some of the exciting papers coming up in 

the next issues of the Australian Journal of Earth Sciences 

(AJES). If you haven’t activated your AJES online membership, 

please do so now. You would have been sent an email from 

Taylor & Francis telling you how. Each year, you need to 

activate your membership after you have paid your 

membership fees for the new calendar year. 

We have two new publications, one from the Queensland 

Division: Rocks and Landscapes of the Gold Coast Hinterland 

and one from the Association of Australasian Palaeontologists: 

Fossil corals of Australia, New Zealand, New Guinea and 

Antarctica: bibliography and index. Both these publications are 

available from the GSA bookshop, which you can access online 

at www.gsa.org.au/bookshop.html 

We have managed to track down many ‘lost members’ 

whose mail has been returned to the GSA, but as always we 

still need your assistance. Congratulations and welcome to the 

new GSA members! The approvals 

for membership late in the year 

don’t meet our TAG December copy 

deadline, so your approval is 

published in the March issue. As a 

new member you may want to join 

your local Division for an evening of informal talks or even 

participate on the committee. You are never too young or too 

old to contribute, and the GSA is only as active and effective as 

the contributions our members make. Your interests may be 

more specific and you may want to join one of the Specialist 

Groups — their contact details can be found on the GSA 

website (www.gsa.org.au), or you can always contact the 

office. Office-bearers for Specialists Groups and Divisions are 

listed on p 47 of TAG. 

This is your Society, so have your say and get involved in 

2011 as we gear up for the International Geological Congress 

in Brisbane (5–10 August 2012). 

Finally, congratulations and farewell to Heather Catchpole 

as Heather will be taking up the position of Deputy Editor at 

Cosmos magazine. Heather is a creative, talented professional 

who has been a pleasure to work with on TAG and other GSA 

projects. With TAG we’ve had a joint vision about how we could 

develop the magazine and Heather has been the person who 

has brought our ideas to fruition, with new levels of 

professionalism, member engagement and interest. Heather 

has put forward many recommendations that we have adopted 

and no doubt her new employer will benefit from her 

enthusiasm and creative input – on behalf of the GSA thank 

you Heather and don’t forget if you ever need an Earth Science 

story, GSA members will be more than happy to help. 

SUE FLETCHER 

Executive Director 

New members 

The GSA welcomes the following new members to the 

Society. May you all have a long and beneficial association 

with the GSA: 

NSW 

M EMBER 

Grahame Bailey 

Todd Hoffman 

S TUDENT 

Ross Timbs 

Sabin Zahirovic 

QLD 

M EMBER 

Julie Dingwall 

G RADUATE 

Karen Anderson 

Kyle Clarkson 

Elizabeth Coop 

Ashley Elliott 

Alana Kemmerling 

Ashley Uren 

Grace Westerman 

Lost members 

The following members’ mail is being returned to the GSA office 

‘return to sender/not known at this address’. If you have their 

contact details can you please forward to info@gsa.org.au 

Thank you to all members for assisting uniting members and 

their GSA mail, after we have exhausted postal, email and phone 

details, we rely on your assistance. 

Kyle Clarkson 

Andrea Dutton 

Paul Fiander 

Paul Flitcroft 

Kyle Ford 

Rhiannon McKeon 

Bonnie Munchinsky 

Ashley Nash 

Richard Orlowski 

Timothy Raggatt 

Paul Tipping 

Helen Williams 

Nicky Yandowai 

Timothy Raggatt 

4 | TAG March 2011

Member survey on the GSA draft Position Statement 

on Climate Change 

Summary Report — February 2011 

Introduction 

In 2009, the GSA released a draft position statement on 

climate change. It attracted significant comment and debate from 

members of the Society. In response, the GSA executive 

committed to polling members regarding a position statement 

and to seek their views on global warming and related aspects of 

climate change. As a first step, a survey asking about the value 

of having a GSA position statement on climate change was 

warranted. 

This survey was conducted during December 2010, via the 

online polling system SurveyGizmo, using questions formulated by 

the executive. The invitation to participate was emailed to 2086 

financial members. Of the emails sent, 1021 were opened, 1008 

were unopened (at the time of writing), and 57 could not be 

delivered for technical reasons. This is the highest ever proportion 

of email openings for a GSA email message to members, and it is 

well above the industry average for an email communication of 

any kind. 

Members unable to receive email, or unable to respond to 

electronic surveys, received letters asking the same questions, 

with provision for response in writing. 

Of the 1008 members who opened the email, 786 viewed the 

survey. Of the latter, 661 members completed and submitted the 

survey online. A further 52 members responded in writing. Thus, 

34% of the financial membership completed the entire survey. 

Additionally, 120 surveys were answered in ways that did not register 

as a fully completed survey with SurveyGizmo. The total 

number of members who submitted partially or fully completed 

surveys was 833, or 40% of the financial membership. 

Results 

The results of the survey are broken down in relation to the 

questions asked from the total of 713 complete responses. 

Q1. Should the GSA have a position statement on Climate Change 

All respondents answered this question. 

Value Count Percentage 

Yes 539 75.6% 

No 174 24.4% 

Q2: Having answered YES to the first question, please check the 

additional statements you agree with: 

Not all Yes respondents answered this question. Percentage cited 

here is the percentage of those who answered Yes to Q1. 

Value — respondents ticked these boxes Count Percentage 

This is an important issue and the 

GSA should be involved 365 67.7% 

It is important that views of geoscientists 

be heard on this topic. 468 86.8% 

It is appropriate that GSA develop positions 

on important topical issues that require 

substantial geoscience input. 460 85.3% 

I do not agree with any of the 

above statements 1 0.2% 

Q3: Having answered NO to the first question, please check 

the additional statements you agree with: 

Not all No respondents answered this question. Percentage cited 

here is the percentage of those who answered No to Q1. 

Value — respondents ticked these boxes Count Percentage 

This is a divisive issue and the 

GSA should not be involved. 49 28.2% 

Geoscientists should not become 

involved in a public debate over 

climate change. 13 7.5% 

As a matter of policy, GSA 

should not develop public 

positions on topical issues. 78 44.8% 

I do not agree with any of the 

above statements. 35 20.1% 

Q4: Please provide a 500 character comment if you have anything 

to add (only the first 500 characters will be taken into consideration 

if more are supplied): 

Extended written comments were received from 261 members. 

They are still under analysis and there is not the space to 

reproduce them all in this summary. Most of the comments were 

constructive, thoughtful, and to-the-point, whether for or against 

the GSA having a position on climate change. Most also expanded 

upon the nature of what any such position should be. A summary 

of the range of opinions will be presented in a forthcoming issue 

of TAG. 

TAG March 2011|5

Data from incomplete surveys 

Responses received from 120 members were not completed in a 

manner that satisfied the protocols of SurveyGizmo. However, of 

these partial responses, only 19 did not provide an answer to Q1. 

The remaining 101 surveys may be considered valid for Q1. 

Value Count Percentage 

Yes 80 79.2% 

No 21 20.8% 

If anything, the incomplete surveys increase the support for the 

Yes vote and, therefore, do not substantially change the outcome. 

The same is true for Q2 and Q3. 

Sources of error 

Two respondents may have accidently submitted their surveys 

more than once. Such a low rate of multiple responses indicates 

there should be a high level of confidence in the data. 

Although some of the written responses may have duplicated 

responses that were submitted electronically, the number of such 

duplicates is statistically insignificant. 

Conclusion 

A statistically significant number of members submitted 

completed surveys. A large majority of respondents were 

supportive of the GSA developing positions on topical issues that 

require substantial geoscience input, including a position on 

climate change. 

No conclusion regarding the nature of any such position can be 

drawn from this survey. The answers to Q4 may substantially 

inform the executive of the opinions of the membership on this 

issue. 

AUSTRALIAN 

ACADEMY 

OF SCIENCE 

AWARDS FOR 

SCIENTIFIC IC 

EXCELLENCE 

Nominations ns 

are sought 

for the 

2012 HADDON DON 

FORRESTER KING MEDAL 

sponsored by Rio Tinto for research 

in mineral exploration 

The Medal is one of the Academy’s 

prestigious career awards for life-long 

achievement and outstanding 

contribution to science. 

Criteria can be found at www.science. 

org.au/awards/awards/haddon.html 

Please contact awards@science.org.au 

for further information 

Closing date 31 July 2011 

Congratulations 

Tony! 

Congratulations to Anthony Vincent (Tony) Brown 

for the award of a Public Service Medal for 

outstanding public service as a leader in the 

application of information technology and 

innovation to Tasmania's mining industry. 

Tony has provided outstanding service to the 

Tasmanian public sector for almost 40 years. 

He has been instrumental in realising a vision to 

develop a digital management system to integrate, 

maintain and analyse geoscientific data in electronic form in delivering on 

the Tasmanian Information on Geoscientific and Exploration Resources 

(TIGER) system — a 3D geological model of Tasmania to provide precommercial 

data to the mining industry. This is a knowledge base for 

regional development, not only for mining and land use but also ultimately 

for the health and well-being of the community. His professional 

accomplishments are also matched by a long commitment to the Tasmanian 

Museum and Art Gallery, including serving as Chairman of the Board of 

Trustees from 1997 until 2005, and he remains on the Board as the Royal 

Society of Tasmania's nominee. Tony has been an outstanding representative 

of Tasmania and has contributed to its advancement, both economically 

and culturally. 

6 | TAG March 2011

Letters to the Editor 

Founding of the Geological Survey 

of Western Australia 

Last issue, in TAG 157 (p 41) John Blockley 

reviewed the book The forgotten explorers; 

pioneer geologists of Western Australia, 

1826–1926 by John Glover and Jenny 

Bevan. This excellent book is recommended 

for anyone who is interested in the early 

history of geologists and geological work in 

Western Australia. However, it is not correct 

in its account of the founding of the 

Geological Survey of Western Australia, 

stating that it was founded by Andrew Gibb 

Maitland in 1896, whereas it should have 

acknowledged Harry Page Woodward to be 

the founder, in 1888. 

Western Australia appointed a number of 

temporary Government Geologists during the 

period 1847–1885. However, on 26 August 

1886 the Legislative Council voted the sum 

of £1000 to establish a permanent Geological 

Survey, and decided to appoint ET Hardman 

as Government Geologist. He had served the 

colony as a temporary Government Geologist 

from 1883 to 1885, but at the end of his 

contract he had returned to his former post 

with the Geological Survey of Ireland. 

Unfortunately, the offer of permanent 

appointment never reached Hardman — 

he had died of typhoid fever in Dublin on 

6 April 1887 (Playford and Ruddock, 1985; 

Playford, 2005). The only other applicant for 

the position, HP Woodward, was then 

appointed, in 1888, at an annual salary of 

£600 and an allowance of £400 (to cover 

field costs). He was later given two assistants, 

S Göczel (field geologist and mining 

engineer), and BH Woodward (curator of 

the geological museum and assayer). The 

‘geological department’, as it was sometimes 

called at that time, became a branch of the 

Mines Department when that department was 

set up in 1894. The head of the Mines 

Department, HC Prinsep, received an annual 

salary of £350, which must have been somewhat 

galling to him in view of the fact that 

Woodward and Göczel each received salaries 

of £600. 

Logo to mark 

the centenary 

of the 

Geological 

Survey of 

Western 

Australia in 

1988. 

Following the resignation of HP Woodward 

to join a mining company, Andrew Gibb 

Maitland was appointed in 1896 as 

Government Geologist, and held that position 

until 1926. On appointment he prepared a 

proposal for an expanded ‘Geological Survey 

Department’ and set up an internal structure 

for the Survey that continued with relatively 

little change until the 1990s. In 1897, the 

Survey separated from the Mines 

Department, becoming an autonomous 

Department and answering directly to the 

Minister for Mines. But by 1902 it was 

re-incorporated into the Mines Department. 

Nevertheless, Maitland did his best to 

maintain its effective autonomy (as did some 

subsequent Government Geologists). 

In Maitland’s time, the Survey produced a 

prodigious number of geological reports and 

maps. However, Maitland acknowledged that 

under the leadership of his predecessor, 

HP Woodward, “the Survey...was able to issue 

21 voluminous reports and six geological 

maps”, which was achieved despite “a limited 

staff, still more limited appropriation, the 

difficulties presented by the vast area of the 

State, and the practical absence of railway 

communication” (Maitland, 1911, 1929). 

From these quotes it can be seen that 

Maitland himself recognised Woodward as 

the founder of ‘the Survey’ (ie the Geological 

Survey of Western Australia). 

The Geological Survey celebrated its 

centenary in 1988 with a large dinner hosted 

by the Minister for Mines, which was attended 

by many representatives of the 

mining and petroleum industries, other 

Government 

departments, academia, 

and staff members. 

Lectures, with a slide 

presentation on the 

history of the Geological 

Survey, were presented. 

This impressive event 

was also celebrated by 

the preparation of 

Memoir 3 of the 

Geological Survey, on the 

geology and mineral 

resources of Western 

Australia. It included a 

foreword entitled ‘The 

Geological Survey of 

Western Australia: a survey 

of a hundred years, 

1888–1988’ (Playford, 

1990). Publications of the Geological Survey 

in 1988–1990 also bore the special logo that 

accompanies this letter. 

I hope that this clarifies the reasons for the 

Geological Survey of Western Australia to 

recognise 1888 as the year of its foundation 

by Harry Page Woodward. 

PHILLIP PLAYFORD 

REFERENCES 

Maitland, AG, 1911, ‘The origin, history, and work of 

the Geological Survey of Western Australia’ Journal of 

the Natural History and Science Society of Western 

Australia, 3/2, p 110–115. 

Maitland, AG, 1929, ‘Geological Survey of Western 

Australia, origin and growth of a valuable branch’ The 

Civil Service Journal, 19/217, p 15–17. 

Playford, PE, 1990, ‘The Geological Survey of Western 

Australia, a survey of 100 years’ Geological Survey of 

Western Australia Memoir 3, p xiii–xxviii. 

Playford, PE, 2005, ‘The Kimberley gold rush of 

1885–1886’ Geological Survey of Western Australia, 

Annual Review 2004–2005, p 33–37. 

Playford, PE, and Ruddock, I, 1985, ‘Discovery of the 

Kimberley Goldfield’ Journal and Proceedings of the 

Royal Western Australian Historical Society, V9, p 

76–106. 

The glacial age 

I would like to commend and congratulate 

warmly Bob Foster for his letter ‘Global 

Cooling Ahead!’. Too often in the past there 

has been a lot of pain caused by scientists 

with rigid theories, which have often been 

proven wrong in the future, with hindsight. 

One must remember the “Little Ice Age”, not 

so long ago. One could argue strongly, that 

TAG March 2011|7

we are still in the “Winsconsinan Glacial”. If 

the last two million years are a guide, we 

have most likely peaked in temperatures, and 

will slowly descend into glacial period, or at 

least a “mini Ice Age”, as natural Earth 

processes would have it. I do not believe in 

what has been termed “dangerous climate 

change” or “runaway climate change”. In the 

American version of the journal Foreign 

Affairs, ‘The World Ahead’, the Nov/Dec 2010 

Special Issue p 111 says: “...and the odds that 

the world will face catastrophic climate 

change are increasing”. This quote appears in 

an article entitled ‘Globalizing the energy 

revolution — how to really win the cleanenergy 

race’, in the first paragraph. I’d also 

like to commend and congratulate Ian Plimer 

for his wonderful book. I believe he is much 

closer to the truth than some adamant IPCC 

scientists. Well done Ian Plimer. Your media 

appearances are well noticed. I note a theory 

by Ewig in the 1950s, where continued melting 

of the Arctic Ice will lead to increased 

precipitation in northern America, in the way 

of snow, slowly accelerating the move 

towards glacial conditions. There are some 

who believe we are heading for conditions 

felt three million years ago. To this I say, 

what about the last two million years, with 

glacials and interglacials, have they forgotten 

these To my knowledge, has elevated carbon 

dioxide levels been decisively proven to 

cause global warming I seem to remember 

that some or even one glacial occurred 

irrespective of elevated carbon dioxide levels. 

To those quoting severe weather events as 

proof of global warming, Europe is presently 

having a severe winter and eastern 

Australian a cool/wet summer. 

PHILIP JOHN BROWN 

Tumut, Australia 

Congratulations Lynton! 

Congratulations to Alan Lynton Jacques for the Public Service Medal, awarded for outstanding 

public service in leading the development of a comprehensive and integrated scientific and 

economic assessment of Australia's energy resources: Australia's Energy Resource Assessment. 

Lynton Jaques is the Chief Scientist at Geoscience Australia and an expert in the nature and 

formation of Australian diamond-bearing rocks and in the activities of the minerals exploration 

industry. Most recently, he played a key leadership role in the development of a comprehensive 

and integrated scientific and economic assessment of Australia’s energy resources: Australia’s 

Energy Resource Assessment (AERA). This study is a world-first that examines the complete 

© Geoscience Australia 

range of non-renewable and renewable resources available to Australia, both currently and for 

the period out to 2030. Lynton led a large team with a very diverse skill base (geologists, economists, 

engineers and graphic designers) working to very tight deadlines to deliver an outstanding study that will 

serve the nation for the foreseeable future. The work is an authoritative evidence base for future policy 

development in relation to Australia’s energy needs. Lynton’s personal contribution was substantial and 

fundamental to shaping the final product and it ensured that the AERA is of the highest standard and 

enduring value. 

8 | 

TAG March 2011


From the AJES Hon Editor’s Desk 

Upcoming in AJES 

Three papers on the important Early Cambrian Emu Bay Shale 

Lagerstätte on Kangaroo Island will be in issue number 3 for 

volume 58. Jago and Cooper describe the history of discovery 

of the site and its significance as the best Burgess Shale-type 

fauna in the Southern Hemisphere. These rich fossil beds 

provide an ideal window to study the unique diversity of Early 

Cambrian life between the Chenjiang fauna of South China and 

the Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale fauna of British Columbia. 

Gehling et al provide a geological description of the strata 

hosting and adjacent to the fossil beds and McKirdy et al 

discuss the geochemical environment with particular reference 

to redox state and alteration. 

Issue number 4 is a thematic issue to mark the 

contributions to a palaeomagnetism of Mike McElhinny and 

Phil McFadden. The issue is edited by Phil Schmidt, Chris 

Klootwijk and Bob Musgrave. 

Changes to AJES website 

From Volume 58 supplementary papers will also be available on 

the AJES website (www.ajes.com.au) or by following the link 

from the GSA website (www.gsa.org.au). For readers who 

access electronic versions of papers this will mean the 

published paper and its supplementary content will be 

available to view together. We will continue to also put the 

supplementary papers on the GSA website. 

We will also have early publication of papers that have 

completed the review process available through iFirst. Articles 

published with page spans can be cited as usual, because all 

final publication information (publication year, volume number, 

page spans) is already available. iFirst articles published as 

"Forthcoming articles" can be cited using their DOIs in addition 

to the article and journal titles. This will be important 

particularly for papers in thematic issues that can be delayed 

for completion of a volume. 

If you would like to be alerted to papers as they become 

available you can sign up to the Informaworld alerting system 

at www.informaworld.com/alerting. This system allows you to 

restrict alerts to particular subject areas as well as the status 

of the publication. The broader the definition, the greater the 

number of alerts, so carefully define what you are interested in 

to avoid flooding your email. 

Formatting references 

One of the most tiresome tasks for authors (and editors!) is 

getting the formatting of references correct. To date only a 

small number of papers I have received use referencemanaging 

programs despite many universities, government 

departments and businesses having site licenses to make them 

freely available to staff and students. 

There are several suitable 

programs in the marketplace but 

since taking on the role of Editor 

I’ve learnt to use one called 

EndNote. EndNote is a bibliographic 

management tool that manages 

reference databases, with input 

directly from databases or manual entry, and it can be used in 

conjunction with a word processor for automatic formatting of 

in-text citations and appended bibliographies to a journal’s 

specified style. 

EndNote comes with working styles for over 4000 journals, but 

for simplicity distributes only 240 of them with routine purchases. 

The remainder, including the AJES style, can be downloaded from 

EndNote’s website or from that of Crandon Services, EndNote’s 

Australian distributor (www.crandon.com.au). The Crandon 

Services website also contains some useful documents and 

tutorials on using EndNote. Alternatively I can easily reformat 

EndNote reference lists compiled in any other style to AJES 

requirements. 

If you’re writing papers for any journal, I recommend you 

explore the use of EndNote, either by downloading a working 

copy if you have a license source or by obtaining a free trial 

copy from Crandon Services. EndNote can be used in 

conjunction with most popular word processors (eg Microsoft 

Word, Open Office, Macintosh Pages), but is most flexible and 

versatile when used with Word, on either Macintosh or PC 

platforms. 

Updated AJES Editorial Board 

Editor-in-Chief: AS Andrew, North Ryde, NSW 

Executive 

AS Andrew, North Ryde, NSW 

PA Cawood, University of St Andrews, UK 

RJ Korsch, Geoscience Australia, ACT 

B Pillans, Australian National University, ACT 

Associate Editors 

2009, 2010, 2011 

AP Belperio, Minotaur Exploration, SA 

BK Davis, Consolidated Minerals, WA 

CL Fergusson, University of Wollongong, NSW 

SM Hill, University of Adelaide, SA 

M Keep, University of Western Australia, WA 

AIS Kemp, James Cook University, Qld 

M Norman, Australian National University, ACT 

FL Sutherland, Australian Museum, NSW 

(Continued on page 10) 

TAG March 2011|9

(Continued from page 9) 

2010, 2011, 2012 

JC Aitchison, University of Sydney, NSW* 

FP Bierlein, Areva NC, SA* 

G Caprarelli, University of Technology Sydney, NSW 

RA Henderson, James Cook University, Qld* 

I Metcalf, University of New England, NSW* 

PW Schmidt, CSIRO, NSW* 

F VandenBerg, Geoscience Victoria, Vic* 

2011, 2012, 2013 

NG Direen, FrOG Tech Pty Ltd, Tas 

GL Fraser, Geoscience Australia, ACT 

RR Hillis, University of Adelaide, SA 

BG Lottermoser, University of Tasmania, Tas 

F Pirajno, Geological Survey of Western Australia, WA 

H Zwingmann, CSIRO, WA 

*appointed 2011 

ANITA ANDREW 

Hon Editor AJES 

AJES.Editor@gsa.org.au 

Out now in an 

AJES near you 

Meandering, river-like channels beneath Port Phillip 

Bay, Victoria, indicate the area dried up between 2800 

and 1000 years before present, according to new 

research in the February Australian Journal of Earth 

Sciences. The data show river-like features up to five 

metres deep and 100 metres across on the floor of Port 

Phillip Bay. These features overlie older channels 

thought to have been made by the Yarra and Werribee 

rivers during the last glacial


Education&Outreach 

Welcome to a new year and the new 

challenges presented by the National 

Curriculum implementation program. So 

early in the year, it is too soon to understand just how 

the new science curriculum will play out with the various State 

jurisdictions, but serious opposition is to be expected on ‘States’ 

rights’ grounds, and on issues surrounding balance and content. 

Watch this space! 

Some States, most notably Western Australia, have not 

waited for a national curriculum to improve Earth Science content 

and delivery. Earth Science Western Australia (ESWA) has 

been instrumental in convincing the State government, industry 

and curriculum advisors to re-write the senior and middle 

school curriculum documents to better reflect the importance 

of Earth Science within science and, at the senior level, the new 

Earth and Environmental Science subject. The process has been 

an outstanding success and the latest demonstration of this is 

the production of a new Earth and Environmental Science text 

book for Western Australia. 

This column is not the place for a book review. The next issue 

of TAG will have a detailed review of this new publication, but 

suffice to say it is probably the best text aimed at the Year 

11–12 teacher and student cohort since Perspectives of the 

Earth, published by the Australia Academy of Science in 1990. 

It is written specifically to address the WA Earth and 

Environmental Science curriculum and therefore is not directly 

applicable to other State curricula, although it will be an 

excellent resource for teachers elsewhere. It 

will also make an excellent template for a 

national text book should the senior national 

Earth and Environmental Science subject 

become a reality in the coming years. Something to truly look 

forward to. 

On a different but allied topic, Sue Jones and Brian Yates 

(University of Tasmania) are leading the Learning and Teaching 

Academic Standards project for Science. The overall aim is to 

identify and document a set of Threshold (or core/minimum) 

Learning Outcome (TLO) statements for undergraduate degrees 

in the Science discipline. 

To find out more, review and respond to the consultation 

document visit the TLO website: 

www.altc.edu.au/standards/disciplines/science 

As with the school curriculum reviews, the GSA plans 

to make a submission in response to this consultation 

document. Send any comments you think may assist the GSA in 

formulating the submission to geoservices@geoed.com.au 

GREG McNAMARA 

Education and Outreach 

Send all comments to Greg McNamara at 

outreach@gsa.org.au 

Congratulations Alison! 

Alison Ord, Adjunct Professor, School of Earth and Environment, at the University of Western 

Australia, formerly Chief Research Scientist, CSIRO Exploration and Mining, has been elected 

to the Fellowship of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering. 

Alison is an internationally acclaimed structural geologist who, over the past 20 years, has 

been responsible for introducing computer modelling technologies into the Australian and 

international structural and economic geology communities with an emphasis on targeting 

procedures for mineralising systems. Her outstanding contribution lies in developing rigorous 

coupling between deformation, fluid-flow and thermal transport that has been successfully 

used by many companies to target mineralisation. 

TAG March 2011|11


Stratigraphic Column 

International connections — 

current activities and future opportunities 

Last year the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS) 

held a workshop in Prague on the GSSP concept (global 

stratotype section and point). The GSSP concept underpins 

the modern geological timescale through a series of carefully chosen 

‘golden spikes’ that globally define the base of each major 

chronostratigraphic unit. Not all units have golden spikes yet, and 

some of the existing ones have proved to be less than ideal. 

Although I was unable to attend, several other Australians 

were there (Jim Gehling, Ian Percival and Martin Van 

Kranendonk) and there were 53 representatives from 20 

countries altogether. We will have the opportunity to show off 

our ‘golden spike’ at the base of the Ediacaran in 2012, and 

maybe campaign for more Australian GSSPs. 

The outcomes of the Prague workshop are reported in the 

latest Newsletter from the International Subcommission on 

Stratigraphic Classification (ISSC). In part they report: “The ICS 

workshop did not formulate a recipe for the perfect GSSP, if such 

a thing exists. However, an instructive mix of the good, the bad 

and the ugly, made clear what mistakes to avoid when defining 

a GSSP. Multiple stratigraphies are now preferably used, 

including multiple bio-, chemo-, sequence-, cyclo- and 

magneto-stratigraphy. Consequently, it is very important that 

boundary stratotypes extend well above and below the GSSP as 

well as across it. Other pointers for good practice also emerged. 

Auxiliary boundary stratotypes, used to extend knowledge 

gained from a GSSP to other geographic regions, are useful but 

there is presently no mechanism within ICS to approve them. 

This might be a matter for subcommissions alone, and it 

represents important future work. Regional reference stratotype 

sections were also discussed, particularly some currently being 

adopted in Russia. It is not a goal of ICS to replace regional 

stages, but rather to provide a framework for global 

comparison.” 

As well as the GSSP concept, other issues discussed in Prague 

included the dual stratigraphic nomenclature of geochronologic 

(time) and chronostratigraphic (time–rock) units (Early and Late vs 

Lower and Upper etc). This dual nomenclature has been 

challenged from time to time, on grounds that ‘golden spikes’ 

serve as reference points for geological time as well as for the 

rock record. There is, however, some value in separating evidence 

(rock record) and inference (time). The Prague meeting voted 

overwhelmingly to retain the dual nomenclature system, although 

acknowledging that some other languages do not even recognise 

some of the nuances that cause so much debate in English. 

12 | TAG March 2011 

The ISSC newsletter also reports on the status of the ‘New 

developments in stratigraphic classification’ project which has 

been underway since 2007. Task Groups on Cyclostratigraphy, 

Chemostratigraphy and Magnetostratigraphy have published 

papers, while the Sequence Stratigraphy text engendered heated 

online debate, and was rejected at review stage. A new group is 

aiming to distribute a new text for comment this year. Working 

Groups are in the process of writing up Biostratigraphy, 

Chronostratigraphy and Lithostratigraphy texts. ISSC Chair Brian 

Pratt points out that “this project will come to a close in 2012, 

and members of the ISSC (including Australia) will have to turn 

their minds to the next step, which is to prepare a revision of the 

International Stratigraphic Guide. It is time now to start thinking 

of what to do about this.” 

Australia is a voting member of the ISSC, through the 

Australian Stratigraphy Commission. In 2012, Australian 

geologists will have a great opportunity to discuss some of the 

successes and limitations of the current International 

Stratigraphic Guide with international colleagues. We can 

demonstrate how it is used and interpreted around Australia. We 

can, for example, show how inclusion of ‘geophysical character’ 

in a unit description can be very helpful in defining not only 

offshore units known from drill core, but also units with limited 

outcrop and lots of thin regolith cover. 

The ISSC also reported on the Geological Society of America’s 

Denver Annual meeting session on Stratigraphic Standards, 

which covered an interesting range of topics, many applicable to 

Australia, including: the lack of upcoming palaeontologists; 

formations — in concept and in the field; the role of lithodemic 

units (igneous and metamorphic rocks, where the law of 

superposition doesn’t apply); a suggestion to revive the Tertiary 

period; and several papers on sequence stratigraphy. There are 

some thought-provoking abstracts that I hope will help to 

encourage a similar sort of session at the 34th IGC in Brisbane. 

For those interested in more detail, the ISSC newsletter is 

available from members of the Australian Stratigraphy 

Commission (http://users.unimi.it/issc/index.php). Standards 

may not seem very exciting, but they are an important tool in 

helping us to communicate well. 

CATHY BROWN 

National Convenor, Australian Stratigraphy Commission 

c/- Geoscience Australia, GPO Box 378, Canberra, ACT, 2601 

cathy.brown@ga.gov.au or cathyeb@netspeed.com.au 

Other Stratigraphy Commission contacts are available at: 

www.gsa.org.au/management/standing_committee.html 

or through www.ga.gov.au/products-services/dataapplications/reference-databases/stratigraphic-units.html


Heritage Matters 

Protecting Australia’s Geological Heritage 

While the issue of the out-of-date status of the GSA’s 

Geological Heritage Policy has been of concern for 

some time, the Heritage Standing Committee meeting, 

held in July 2010, was able to make significant progress on 

the matter and a draft of the Policy has been sent to the Division 

committees and the various subcommittees. It is being posted on 

the GSA website for wider comments and feedback. I provide 

here some of the Commonwealth legislative background and 

legislative changes, prior to and since the enactment of the 

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) 

Act, 1999, and its amendments, for the identification and 

protection of sites of geoheritage significance. This emphasises 

the importance, to science and education, employment in the 

field of geology, and for the Geological Society, of developing a 

policy in today’s national legislative framework, created by the 

membership and interested parties, and which will be relevant to 

the Earth Sciences. 

The Australian Constitution does not directly permit the 

Commonwealth to legislate in respect of sites other than those 

that fall within its own jurisdiction. However, where Australia 

enters into international agreements, the Commonwealth can 

legislate to protect sites within certain categories. Australia is a 

signatory to a number of important International conventions, 

including the Convention concerning the Protection of the World 

Cultural and Natural Heritage, the Ramsar Convention and the 

Convention on Biological Diversity. 

The Register of the National Estate 

Honouring an election promise in 1975 by the Whitlam 

Government, the Natural Heritage Trust was enacted in 

Commonwealth legislation. Funding was made available to the 

States to identify and compile inventories of sites of national 

natural heritage significance. Australia’s heritage of places and 

structures deriving from these inventories became known as the 

Registry of the National Estate. It was the first-ever national 

survey of Australia’s heritage of natural, Indigenous and historic 

places. Over the subsequent 30 years, the Register, better known 

as the RNE, came to include over 13 000 places of outstanding 

individual significance, together with places representative of 

Australia’s natural and cultural history. For its time, it was the 

most significant national inventory of natural and cultural 

places in Australia. 

However, by 1996, there was criticism that the RNE process 

had created duplication of effort in some areas, and had left 

complete gaps in others, causing confusion and unnecessary 

conflict. Work to correct this started on a number of fronts. The 

first of these was the review of Commonwealth/State Roles and 

Responsibilities for the Environment conducted by the Council of 

Australian Governments or COAG, and the second was the 

reform of Commonwealth environment and heritage legislation. 

One of the outcomes of the 1997 COAG review was an 

agreement to rationalise existing Commonwealth/State 

arrangements for identifying, protecting and managing places of 

heritage significance. This was to be carried out through the 

cooperative development of a National Heritage Places Strategy 

— the first ever for Australia. This was because the 

Commonwealth government recognised that the States should 

have primary responsibility for protecting places of State and 

local significance through legislation and systems, including 

working strongly with local government. 

With the enactment of the Environmental Protection and 

Biodiversity Act (1999), some significant changes to Australia’s 

national heritage protection arrangements came about. Firstly, 

the Australian Heritage Commission was replaced by the 

Australian Heritage Council, with diminished powers. Secondly, 

the protective powers of the Commonwealth were extended to 

include protection for sites of biodiversity and Indigenous 

significance, and later with the passing of the Heritage Bill, for 

sites of natural heritage significance. Thirdly, in 2003 the 

Register of the National Estate was frozen (at which point the 

Register contained 13 127 places), meaning that no new places 

could be added or existing ones removed. Under the EPBS Act, 

the Register of the National Estate will only continue as a 

statutory register until February 2012, ie from February 2012 

all references to the RNE will be removed from Federal 

heritage legislation, and the Register will be only be maintained 

after this time as a publicly available archive. 

The EPBC Act (1999) was, in part, based on the premise of 

1997 COAG agreement by Commonwealth Agreements with the 

individual States, agreeing to identify and legislate for the 

protection of natural heritage. Largely, this has not occurred, and 

since 2004 the only places to be transferred from the Register of 

the National Trust and listed on the new National Heritage will 

be those that meet the criteria of comprising exceptional natural 

and cultural qualities that contribute to Australia's national 

identity, and that: “define the critical moments in our 

development as a nation and reflect achievements, joys and 

sorrows in the lives of Australians. The criteria also encompass 

those places that reveal the richness of Australia's 

extraordinarily diverse natural heritage”. In addition, it includes 

objects, collections and intangible aspects such as community 

values, customs, languages, beliefs, traditions and festivals. 

Further, a ceiling, or cap was placed on the number of sites that 

would be protected. 

TAG March 2011|13

To put this into context, the change of status and capping of 

the number of listed places on the National Heritage List means 

that only a few of the 13 000 natural, historic and Indigenous 

places of an entire continent will be listed for protection under 

new criteria for legislative protection. Currently there are some 

85 on the National Heritage List, including World Heritage Sites, 

buildings such as the Qantas hangar at Longreach and places 

such the Melbourne Cricket Ground and the Flemington Race 

Course. In comparison, the US National Register of Historic Sites 

alone has over 60 000 places and there are over 450 000 historic 

places listed in the United Kingdom. 

While there are some positive aspects to the enactment of 

EPBC Act, in that it does offer strong legislative protection to 

sites listed under the Act, the negative aspects include: 

● restrictions to the types and numbers of sites that can be 

nominated and listed; 

● the decision on what sites are listed is Ministerial; 

● there is no systematic inventory-based assessment 1 of sites of 

Geoheritage significance, at the State level, by the 

Commonwealth, or by the States (with the exception of 

Tasmania); 

● only a select few sites of National Significance will be afforded 

legislative protection; 

● the loss of the enormous body of work, by the States’ 

Geological Societies, and individuals, under the NHT funding and 

the RFA, that led to the listing of sites on the RNE; 

● there are no criteria that allow for sites to be nominated for 

science and education; 

● the EPBC Act is biased towards the protection of biodiversity; 

● there is no recognition that geodiversity underpins biodiversity; 

● there is no avenue for the Geological Society of Australia to 

represent the interests of science and education in the Earth 

Sciences in the selection and protection of sites of geoheritage 

significance. 

The continuation of this state of affairs can result in nonrecoverable 

damage, or the loss of not only sites that have been 

identified as sites of geoheritage significance, but also those 

that have yet to be identified. 

In a global context, save for Tasmania, the current framework 

of piecemeal and ad hoc conservation of sites of Geoheritage 

significance at both the Commonwealth and State level is over 

30 years behind the rest of the word in relation to inventorybased 

conservation, and at least 10 years behind the rest of the 

world in recognising the link that geodiversity underpins 

biodiversity. 

For up-to date information on the state of the discipline of 

Geoheritage, I refer the readership to the European Association for the 

Conservation of European Geoheritage website www.progeo.se/ 

as well as the new scientific journal Geoheritage 

(www.springer.com/earth+sciences/geology/journal/12371) and 

the Geological Society of Spain’s initiatives in putting 

geoconservation on the international (IUCN) agenda: ‘Major 

achievement towards geoconservation’ 

(p 2; www.progeo.se/news/2009/pgn109.pdf). 

Where to from here for the GSA in the development of a 

revised Policy Statement 

The current Commonwealth framework and selection criteria 

for the National Heritage list are not compatible with the 

Geological Society of Australia’s objectives to conserve sites of 

geological significance for science and education. 

There is a need to formulate a Policy Statement that reflects 

current thinking and global trends in geoconservation. Based on 

her work with the State Divisions in developing a revised Draft 

Policy, Susan White has provided the following background and 

comments as guidance for comments on the Draft Policy: 

(1) The policy must reflect GSA’s concern regarding the 

documentation and protection of various sites and features of 

significance at both National, State and local levels. Therefore, 

the State Divisions have tried to make sure this policy is 

sufficiently broad to cope with these situations. 

(2) At the State (Division) level, the policy needs to be clear as 

to who can speak for GSA on geoheritage matters. Sometimes 

the issues are controversial, particularly in an industry where 

there are competing values, ie where extraction of economic 

geological material is a major activity. Some Divisions have very 

successful subcommittees, which work well with their Division 

committees; other Divisions have no such structures. In the 

latter case it therefore falls to the Division committee to fulfil 

this role. 

(3) The policy is only in draft form until ratified by the GSA 

Council at Brisbane in 2012. While the current policy has been 

a very robust and workable one — its general thrust has been 

one that most members find acceptable — for some the wording 

is dated. We need to reword and update the Policy without 

losing its advantages. One of these advantages is that it is 

focused on geoheritage, not all aspects of geotourism, 

geoconservation, or science and education. 

The Standing Committee therefore asks you to go to the website: 

www.gsa.org.au/heritage/, and read the Draft Policy critically. 

Please send your comments to: geoheritage@iinet.net.au 

MARGARET BROCX 

geoheritage@iinet.net.au 

Footnote: 1 This is separate from the important inventories being maintained by the 

GSA and/or State Geological Surveys. 

14 | TAG March 2011

News 

from the Divisions 

VIC 

Frank Canavan Award 

The Frank Canavan Award was set up in 

1996 by Mrs Canavan in honour of her late 

husband Frank, a well-known Victorian 

geologist who was very active in promoting 

geological education and was a member of 

the Education Subcommittee of the Division. 

The Award is a cash sum for the purchase of 

geological textbooks, and is awarded to the 

most promising student who has finished 

second-year geology at a Victorian university, 

as judged by the student’s academic 

performance. The 2010 Canavan Prize was 

awarded to Kathryn Owen from Monash 

University. 

DE Thomas Medal 

This silver medal commemorates David Evan 

Thomas, the well-known former head of the 

Victorian Geological Survey who was famous 

for his detailed and precise mapping. The 

Thomas Medal is offered each year for the 

best geological map produced by a Victorian 

Honours-level student in Victoria. 

Submissions are sought by the selection 

committee from Geology or Earth Science 

Departments of Victorian universities. 

The 2010 Thomas Medal was awarded to 

Ashleigh Hood from the University of 

Melbourne for her Honours project on the 

newly-discovered Oodnaminta Reef in the 

Flinders Ranges, South Australia. The reef is 

of Neoproterozoic (Cryogenian) age and 

contains evidence of pre-Ediacaran 

multicellular organisms. Ashleigh’s project 

was to study the field geology and petrology 

of the Oodnaminta Reef, and she produced a 

detailed map of the reef and surrounding 

sediments. Her mapping and petrology were 

outstanding and she gained a mark of 97% 

for her thesis. Ashleigh was awarded the 

GSA Canavan Prize in 2009. 

INGRID CAMPBELL 

Chair, Awards Committee 

LEFT TO RIGHT 

Ingrid Campbell 

(Chair, Awards 

Committee) and 

Kathryn Owen 

(Monash University), 

winner of the Frank 

Canavan Award. 

Ingrid Campbell 

presents Ashleigh 

Hood (University of 

Melbourne) with the 

2010 DE Thomas 

Medal. 

Do you know your geologist... 

Hint: The year is 

1999, the place 

north-west 

Western Australia. 

(Answer p 35). 

TAG March 2011|15

16 | 

News 

from the Specialist Groups 

ESHG Newsletter unveils: 

“Greatest scientific 

program ever attempted 

in Australia” 

At the Australian Earth Sciences Convention, held 

in Canberra in July 2010, the Topical session Earth 

Science History focused on “The greatest scientific 

program that has been attempted in Australia” (to 

quote Larry Harrington who suggested the 

theme). The program, the systematic geological 

mapping of the whole of the continent at scales 

of four miles to the inch and 1:250 000, was an 

endeavour that took place over about three 

decades from the 1950s to 1980s. Former Bureau 

of Mineral Resources (BMR) geologist, Alastair 

Stewart, was able to muster a quorum of past and 

present regional mappers from the BMR and most 

States and Territories who, with their colleagues, 

had traversed terrains ranging from sandy deserts 

to tropical rain forests so as to fill in their one by 

one-and-a-half degree quadrangles while coping 

with flies, floods, flat tyres, cantankerous fourwheel 

drives, and deadlines imposed by their 

Directors. 

David Branagan introduced the session with his 

keynote address: ‘The past is the key to the 

present: Australian geological mapping from 

the 1830s to World War II’, thus laying the 

A capsized truck south of Forsayth, far north 

Queensland, heading for base camp on Robinson 

River, April 1958. Image courtesy Colin Branch. 

A field geologist’s office: mapping of Australia at 

1:250 000 scale at Millstream, north-west 

Western Australia, in 1959. Image courtesy 

Colin Branch. 

TAG March 2011 

foundation for the mapping theme. His talk was 

followed by accounts of the scientific achievements 

of the Burke and Wills expedition (Doug 

McCann with Bernie Joyce) and seismic profiling 

of the Australian crust (Doug Finlayson). Larry 

Harrington then gave the background and raison 

d’être of the massive mapping program while 

Cathy Brown explained the need for a uniform 

method of stratigraphic nomenclature to apply to 

the maps. She was followed by the regional 

stories for Queensland (Ian Withnell), Northern 

Territory (Peter Dunn), Western Australia 

(Dennis Gee), South Australia (Bob Dalgarno), 

New South Wales and the Australian Capital 

Territory (John Watkins), Victoria (Fons 

Vandenberg) and Papua-New Guinea (Hugh 

Davies). Finally, Ian O'Donnell described 

the process of drafting and printing the large 

number of resulting maps, while Don Perkin 

summarised the economic benefits for Australia 

of the whole program. 

Apart from Dave Branagan's keynote address, 

which is printed in full, the abstracts of the talks 

given during the AESC session have now been 

compiled into ESHG Newsletter 41, their austere 

texts and graphs being augmented by photographs 

showing the delights and vicissitudes of 

regional mapping in the decades following World 

War II. Also in the Newsletter is another paper by 

David Branagan, this time on his favourite subject, 

Edgeworth David, and the contribution he 

made in describing the geology of the Sunny 

Corner mines near Bathurst in New South Wales. 

Doug Finlayson has also provided a second contribution 

— on the role that Pittman's geological 

map of 1910 played in guiding the layout of 

Canberra. Other items in the Newsletter include 

the text of the speech given by John Glover of 

UWA at the launch of his book (co-authored 

with Jenny Bevan) on early Western Australian 

geologists and explorers, a review of Keith Johns' 

recent account of the discovery and development 

of the Olympic Dam ore body at Roxby Downs, 

and an announcement of the inauguration of the 

Tom Vallance Medal to recognise people who 

have made significant contributions to unravelling 

the history of geoscience and geoscientists in 

Australia. 

A video of the Earth Sciences History session at 

AESC2010, taken by Frank Meany of OneVision in 

Canberra, is included as a CD in the Newsletter. 

Copies can be made available (at cost) to other 

parties who may be interested in this historical 

record of the practices, privations and privileges 

of working in the field in remote Australia in the 

1950s, 1960s and 1970s. 

JEAN JOHNSTON, PETER DUNN and 

JOHN BLOCKLEY 

SGPG VSSEC–NASA 

Australian Space 

Prize finalists in the 

category ‘Geology and 

Planetary Science’ 

Two of our top Australian geology Honours 

students, Ken McLean (Monash University) and 

Emily Bathgate (University of Technology, Sydney), 

represented geology and planetary geoscience 

in the VSSEC–NASA Australian Space Prize 

competition, for a chance to be selected to work 

with a NASA scientist during the 2011 NASA 

Academy program. 

Ken’s thesis on numerical models of mantle 

convection and primitive magmatism at subduction 

zones was supervised by Patricia Durance–Sie 

(School of Geoscience, Monash) and Margarete 

Jadamec (School of Mathematical Sciences, 

Monash). 

Emily’s thesis on volcano–ice interaction 

processes in the Martian northern hemisphere 

was supervised by Graziella Caprarelli (School 

of the Environment, UTS). 

Theses were submitted in the following 

categories: Space Engineering; Space Physics and 

Astrophysics; Geology and Planetary Science; 

Data Processing and Electronics. The papers were 

judged by a panel of 15 experts in the fields, 

based both in Australia and in the USA. Their 

evaluations reflected the outstanding quality of 

the students and of the research conducted in 

Australian universities in a broad variety of space 

science and engineering fields. 

The VSSEC–NASA category winners were 

announced on 1 February 2011, with Emily 

Bathgate declared the winner for Geology and 

Planetary Science. The list of winners in all 

categories is published at: www.vssec.vic.edu.au/ 

tertiary/vssec-nasa-australian-space-prize/ 

(2010 Category Winners Announced). Among 

them one overall winner will be selected to 

attend one of the NASA Academy programs at 

Ames Research Center, Goddard Flight Center or 

Marshall Flight Center, or participate in a 

NASA-affiliated summer program in mid-2011. 

All other winners will receive a $1000 cash prize. 

The Specialist Group in Planetary Geoscience of 

the Geological Society of Australia, one of the 

sponsors of the yearly competition, congratulates 

both Ken and Emily on their scientific achievements 

and wishes them the best in their future 

careers as geoscientists. 

GRAZIELLA CAPRARELLI (Chair, SGPG) 

MARC NORMAN (Inaugural Chair, SGPG)

NEWS 

In the news this issue: 

■ The National Rock Garden 

■ Searching for giant ore deposits: Theo Murphy Think Tank 

■ 5IAS wrap up 

■ CAVEPS: First circular 

■ News from MQ and ANSTO 

■ NEO 2010 wrap up 

■ IGCP project reports 

■ Young Earth Science News 

Alot has happened since the launch 

of the National Geological Heritage 

Garden at the Australian Earth 

Science Convention last July, including a 

name change for the project (see TAG 156, 

p 17). After some reflection on the project 

name by a wider audience, and considering 

the nature of other institutions in the 

nation’s capital city like the National 

Museum of Australia and the Australian 

National Botanical Gardens, the GSA decided 

to seek a name change to: ‘National Rock 

Garden — celebrating the geological heritage 

of Australia’. The new name awaits 

Ministerial approval. 

The aims of the project are to recognise, 

acknowledge and celebrate Australia’s rich 

geological heritage in a parkland setting within 

the nation’s capital, and demonstrate to 

present and future generations of Australians 

the diversity of the rocks and minerals that 

contribute so significantly to the nation’s 

landscapes, heritage and prosperity. 

In January, the GSA distributed the first project 

newsletter to the ‘Friends of the National Rock 

Garden’, and it can be downloaded as a PDF file 

from the GSA website www.gsa.org.au (look 

for the National Rock Garden links). If you 

would like to join the ‘Friends’ group, email 

rockgarden@gsa.org.au or contact the 

authors of this article. 

Some thought has now gone into landscape 

design and, without pre-empting any designs 

created ultimately by a professional landscape 

architect, the sketch here gives some idea of 

current thinking. The idea is to create an 

entrance avenue to a central focal area, with 

linking service roads and pathways across the 

higher parts of the sloping site that will lead 

to a broad pattern of increasing westward 

aging of rocks across the continent. 

National Rock Garden specimen rocks will be 

selected on the basis of criteria that reflect 

the project aims. 

Specimens must be large (10–20 tonnes), 

realistically collectable, sufficiently robust for 

transport and long-term survival in the 

Canberra environment, and they must meet 

more than one of the following selection 

criteria (not in any priority order). 

National Rock Garden theme and pathway 

layout. 

TAG March 2011|17

The site of the National Rock Garden on the 

shore of Lake Burley Griffin, Canberra. 

● Educational value and public/tourist 

interest: The public interest and education 

are of major importance. The National Rock 

Garden is for all Australians and must be 

seen as a unique public amenity and a ‘must 

do’ on the tourist agenda for any visit to the 

nation’s capital. It must be a pleasant and 

interesting place to visit; 

● Nationally recognised/iconic: Specimens 

should be readily identified by most 

Australians with a nationally significant location, 

culture, industry, economic or scientific 

heritage, etc, eg Sydney Basin (Hawkesbury) 

sandstone and Pilbara iron ore; 

● Story line/history: Specimens should 

have a fascinating story to tell vis-a-vis 

Australian social history, scientific interest, 

industrial/economic importance or Indigenous 

cultural tradition, eg Moruya granite in 

Sydney Harbour Bridge and Flinders Ranges 

fossils within early life on planet Earth; 

● Interest/appearance: Specimens should 

have an intrinsically interesting rock type, 

shape, colour or texture, eg orbicular granite, 

columnar basalt, Banded Iron Formation. The 

collection must include a balance of rock 

types, ages, fossils (from forams to dinosaur 

footprints), resources (gold to iron ore and 

industrials), and structures, covering the 

length and breadth of the continent. 

GSA is in the process of establishing small 

State- and Territory-based groups of geologists 

from geological surveys, industry and 

academia that can advise on selecting and 

collecting appropriate rock specimens. Get in 

touch if you wish to get involved. Help GSA 

build a national asset and mature National 

Rock Garden that is a credit to Australian 

cultural and natural heritage. 

DOUG FINLAYSON 

doug.finlayson@netspeed.com.au 

JOHN BAIN 

johnbain@tpg.com.au 

Searching for giant ore 

deposits undercover: 

Theo Murphy Think Tank 

In 1946, while the country was still exhausted 

from the Second World War, the great 

Australian geologist Sir Harold Raggatt convinced 

the government to fund the geological 

mapping of our continent. His vision was that 

obtaining this fundamental scientific data 

would lead to many new major mineral 

discoveries and ultimately make Australia a 

wealthy nation. History has proven the prescience 

of this vision; mineral and energy 

exports have grown from essentially nothing 

in 1946 to A$160 billion in 2008/2009. 

Sir Harold’s vision was uppermost in the 

minds of more than 50 of Australia’s leading 

early and mid-career researchers when they 

came together (with a sprinkling of more 

senior mentors) in Canberra last August at 

the Australian Academy of Science’s Theo 

Murphy Think Tank. Their task was to 

consider the problem of finding the next 

generation of giant mineral deposits undercover. 

The event is significant in that it was 

the first time that the Academy of Science 

had devoted their annual Theo Murphy Think 

Tank to a geoscience-related issue. The 

imperative for this was the increasing 

realisation that, 66 years after Australian 

surface mapping began, we have probably 

found all the giant deposits near the surface. 

Finding the next generation undercover will 

require us to make major innovative leaps. 

The results of this two-day workshop were 

compiled in a comprehensive report by the 

Academy and launched on 11 January by 

Federal Resources Minister, Martin Ferguson, 

in Canberra. The crux of this report is a call 

for a new national mapping initiative for 

the 21st century, inspired by the success of 

Sir Harold’s vision but now focused on the 

Australian sub-surface. At the launch, the 

recommendations of this report were strongly 

supported by Minister Ferguson, who has 

always been a passionate advocate for greenfields 

mineral exploration. 

The report acknowledges the large amount of 

relevant, world-class work that is already 

going on in Australia to address the challenge 

of undercover exploration and many of the 

recommendations are about providing a better 

framework to integrate this work. However, 

there are also some very specific, new recommendations 

such as a National Cover Map (its 

thickness and character), a National Map of 

the Deep Crust and Upper Mantle, a National 

Distal Footprints Program and a National 4D 

Metallogenic Map (putting mineral deposits 

into a dynamic context). The emphasis on the 

word ‘map’ is intentional: the Think Tank felt 

very strongly that providing data in a spatial 

context (ie as ‘maps’) is critical for the 

effective support of mineral discovery. 

18 | TAG March 2011

The report is likely to be presented to the 

Prime Minister’s Science and Engineering 

Council, the national peak body for innovation. 

The contents of the report are likely to 

be influencing Australian geosciences long 

before any outcomes from that process. For 

example, the report provides a powerful justification 

for the next generation of funding 

for Geoscience Australia and a very useful 

framework to guide that work. 

For those that are interested, the full proceedings 

report (including all presentations 

given during the Think Tank itself) can be 

downloaded from www.science.org.au/events 

/thinktank/thinktank2010/ 

JON HRONSKY 

5th International Archean 

Symposium (5IAS) 

The 5IAS, the premier international symposium 

dedicated to Precambrian geoscience, was 

held on 5–9 September 2010 at the Burswood 

Entertainment Complex, Perth, Western 

Australia. The meeting continued a long-time 

line of successful IAS meetings held every 

decade by Geoconferences (WA) Inc. The 

meeting was attended by 315 geoscientists 

from 19 countries. A prominent feature was 

the 44 students who attended the meeting, 

many of them sponsored by Geoconferences 

through the Joe Lord Travel grants. In opening 

the four-day meeting (which was most fitting 

given his presence at every IAS), Alec Trendall 

regaled us with stories of past events. He also 

reminded us of why this meeting was established 

and remains so important in building 

both Western Australian and global geoscience 

knowledge of the early Earth. The 

meeting was organised into four themes based 

on the biggest issues in the evolution of the 

early Earth. The standard of speaker was very 

high, reflecting the excellent work by Ian Tyler 

and his technical session team that resulted in 

over half of the speakers being invited or 

keynotes. The meeting was remarkably multidisciplinary, 

bringing together everything from 

regional geophysics, isotopic geochemistry, 

geochronology, structural geology and biology. 

Four pre- and post-conference field trips 

reflecting the four central themes provided 

highly successful overviews of key outcrops 

and mineralisation of Western Australian 

early-Earth geology. 

The conference proceedings (including 

extended abstracts) and field excursion guides 

were published by the Geological Survey of 

The spectacular 1.8-billion-year-old Duck Creek Dolomite outcrop, Western Australia, one of the 

locations of a 5IAS conference field trip visited by 20 eminent geoscientists led by Martin Van 

Kranendonk (GSWA). The Duck Creek hosts fossil stromatolites of various shapes such as conical 

structures and domes. Image courtesy Martin Van Kranendonk. 

Western Australia as the usual high quality 

GSWA records and are available digitally free 

of charge (www.dmp.wa.gov.au/7119.aspx). 

If you weren't at the meeting, we encourage 

you to check out the wealth of information in 

these publications. 

Highlighting individual speakers from such a 

high-quality list is often very subjective, but 

here are some personal highlights: Tony 

Kemp's stand-out review provided us with an 

overview of the differentiation and evolution 

of the Early Earth. Advances in analytical 

capability over the last decade has driven an 

explosion of new and exciting research, 

largely from the same small mineral (zircon) 

that revolutionised our understanding of the 

age of the Earth in previous decades. Bill 

Griffin combined geophysical and geochemical 

approaches to review GEMOC's progress 

in understanding the Archean lithospheric 

mantle. The Archean lithospheric mantle’s 

control on the evolution of the Earth was to 

reappear throughout the meeting. Jean 

Bedard was as entertaining as ever, with his 

ideas on Archean tectonics. The good natured 

discussion after the talk and throughout the 

meeting was an illustration of how science 

should be. Graham Begg’s keynote presentation 

on the role the lithosphere has played in 

controlling metallogeny highlighted the move 

away from forensic to predictive Economic 

Geology. This together with Shane Evans’ 

and Dave Snyder’s presentations brought 

together regional geophysics, geology, and 

metallogeny. The origin of life continued to 

attract an expert and generalist audience. 

Nora Noffke's uniformitarian approach to 

microbial-induced sedimentary structures 

suggests cyanobacteria were constructing 

microbial mats by at least 3.2 Ga. 

The poster session contained the majority of 

presentations and deserves special mention. 

Nicolas Thebaud put together an innovative 

short oral and poster approach that encouraged 

strong attendance. Premium wines and 

beer, cheese and a plethora of small pastries 

certainly kept the questions coming. Social 

events are always a highlight at meetings 

like this; they bring together friends and 

colleagues who see each other too 

infrequently. A highly successful BBQ 

showcased the Geological Survey of Western 

Australia’s core storage facility, and Martin 

Van Kranendonk's passion matched the 

quality of the geology to be seen in the 

Archean cores he had selected for viewing, 

as well as the quality of the core facility 

itself. A special note has to go to the 

catering throughout the conference, a stand 

out from any other meeting we have been to. 

Everyone went home a few kilos heavier! 

A special thanks to our numerous sponsors 

who ensured our being able to put together a 

highly successful event. See you all again in 

Perth in 10 years. 

STEVE BERESFORD, TIM GRIFFIN, 

IAN TYLER 

TAG March 2011|19

CAVEPS — 1st Circular 

13th Conference on Australasian 

Vertebrate Evolution Palaeontology and 

Systematics 

Perth Cultural Centre 

27 April–30 April 

You are invited to attend the 13th CAVEPS, 

a biennial meeting of vertebrate palaeontologists 

from Australia and around the 

world, jointly hosted by Curtin University, 

Western Australian Museum, Murdoch 

University and University of Western 

Australia. 

CAVEPS is a multidisciplinary conference 

that covers morphology, phylogeny, 

taphonomy, taxonomy, palaeoecology and 

palaeoenvironment with respect to 

vertebrate evolution and we encourage 

attendance from a wide range of 

disciplines. In addition to the general 

sessions within the four days we plan a 

number of symposia including: 

1. Tomography and palaeontology: new 

techniques in the investigation of old fossils; 

2. Extinction events throughout the history 

of Australia; 

3. Ancient DNA, molecules and isotopes: 

rare preservation in the fossil record; 

4. Vertebrate functional morphology; 

5. Preparatory and museum techniques; 

6. Whale symposium. 

The conference will be held in the heart 

of the Perth Cultural Centre in the wellequipped 

State Library Lecture Theatre, 

which is adjacent to the Western Australian 

Museum. There are many accommodation 

options close to the conference venue, from 

backpackers to 5-star hotels and further 

information will be provided in future 

circulars. The venue is within the CBD and 

therefore has the advantage of having a 

great variety of restaurants, bars and 

entertainment options right on your 

doorstep. There will be a welcome function 

and conference dinner. Post-conference field 

trips will include the famous Margaret River 

wine area in the south as well as mammal 

sites, and for the early-vertebrate workers a 

tour including the Ningaloo Reef as well as 

Devonian reefs and Cretaceous sites. 

Please register your interest by contacting 

k.trinajstic@curtin.edu.au with your name, 

affiliation and address and the title of your 

presentation or poster. Please also indicate 

if you will be attending the Margaret River 

or Ningaloo field excursions. We are aiming 

to keep costs as low as possible. 

Synchrotron and neutron 

experimental studies of 

deep-Earth environments 

Geoscientists need to use laboratory and 

computer experiments to try to recreate the 

enormous pressure–temperature conditions 

in the deep Earth and then measure the 

properties of minerals under these 

conditions. In this field of high-pressure 

mineral physics and chemistry, we apply 

mineral properties, stress–strain relationships 

in multiphase rocks, and processes 

such as partial melting at high pressures and 

temperatures, to geophysical observations of 

the deep Earth. Early studies have constrained 

the pressure dependence of deformation 

of minerals such as olivine and the 

slip systems in high-pressure minerals such 

as wadsleyite and perovskite. These results 

have important implications for the depth 

variation of mantle viscosity and the geodynamic 

interpretation of seismic anisotropy. 

However, there is still much to be done. Since 

the early developments of experimental 

petrology and rock deformation (used to 

experimentally explore the deep Earth), 

shortcomings of the existing equipment 

available had become a hindrance, and new 

designs were, and are, being developed. 

Quantitative experimental studies of minerals 

and rocks under very deep mantle conditions 

are challenging, and major progress in this 

area has often been associated with the 

development of new techniques. Until very 

recently, reliable studies have been conducted 

only at pressures less than ~0.5 GPa 

(equivalent to ~15 km depth in Earth). 

Fortunately, technical developmental work 

has been undertaken over the past 10 years 

with the help of the National Science 

Foundation’s support of the consortium 

COMPRES (http://compres.us; Consortium for 

Materials Properties Research in Earth 

Sciences. Macquarie University has been 

an international member since 2007). One 

main aim was to develop new methods for 

quantitatively studying rheological properties 

and deformation microstructures under P–T 

conditions equivalent to Earth’s deep interior. 

Scientific advances have been helped by 

the development of high-P–T deformation 

apparatuses, such as the large volume D-DIA, 

and this has opened up the possibility of 

determining physical and chemical processes 

in the upper mantle down to the transition 

zone in the Earth’s mantle. The D-DIA is a 

large volume, multi-anvil high pressure 

Image courtesy Tracy Rushmer. 

20 | TAG March 2011 D-DIA anvils and cell. 

and temperature apparatus capable of 

deformation for in situ synchrotron 

experimentation. The D-DIA apparatus, 

in which deformation experiments are 

conducted at high pressures by moving two 

sets of anvils independently, has been 

regularly operated to P ~10 GPa and 

T ~1600 K and can achieve higher pressures, 

up to 20 GPa. The experiments have provided 

a large amount of new data on plastic 

deformation under these conditions. 

Currently, there are five such apparatuses, 

with most being housed in the US 

laboratories. 

To develop the capability to participate in 

this exciting new area of research, we plan 

to: 1) bring a D-DIA to Australia to perform 

state-of-the-art experiments on the 

Melbourne-based synchrotron; and 2) bring a 

modified D-DIA style multi-anvil apparatus 

to ANSTO/OPAL in order to complement 

X-ray information with neutron scattering 

techniques, allowing light elements to be 

explored. We have very recently found out 

that this modification has been done for the 

Los Alamos facility. The apparatus (a ‘ZIA’) 

has not yet been online due to funding a 

new beam line at Los Alamos. We are now in 

the process of applying for funding a ZIA 

through ANSTO for the ANSTO facility. 

Currently, we are funded for the D-DIA from 

Macquarie University and we are in the 

process of completing the needed funding 

request through ANSTO. The new beam-line 

experimental equipment also expands and 

complements current active high-pressure 

experimental laboratories at Macquarie 

University and ANU (piston-cylinders, 

Griggs’s Rig and multi-anvils). 

By combining novel techniques of neutron 

and synchrotron-based in situ stress–strain 

measurements with newly designed 

high-pressure apparatuses, a new generation 

of experimental studies of minerals and rocks 

under deep-mantle conditions is emerging.

In conclusion, this is a fully collaborative 

effort between the Bragg Institute, 

Macquarie University and the Australian 

Synchrotron and will see an increase in 

research productivity and educational possibilities 

in the community. 

TRACY RUSHMER 

Dept of Earth and Planetary Sciences 

Macquarie University 

New England Orogen 2010 

The NEO2010 Conference, held at the 

University of New England (UNE) 

16–19 November 2010, was a great success 

with 157 participants attending the four-day 

conference. A wealth of new data and ideas 

are presented in the NEO2010 Conference 

volume, of which there are limited hard 

copies available for sale from the University 

of Armidale (ISBN 978 1 921597 24 4). 

All proceeds of the conference have gone 

towards scholarships for geology students at 

UNE in order to help UNE to continue to 

produce high-quality geology graduates. It 

has been over a decade since the last New 

England conference, following a tradition of 

new England geology symposiums held in 

1982, 1988, 1993 and 1999. This conference 

covered four important themes including: 

tectonics, alumni, granites and mineralisation; 

it also honoured the lifelong works of 

Peter Flood, Bruce Chappell and Paul Ashley 

for their contributions to tectonics, granites 

and mineralisation respectively in the New 

England Orogen. 

Pre-conference fieldtrip 

The pre-conference fieldtrip was attended by 

31 people, including the likes of John Dewey, 

David Branagan and Keith Crook. The first day 

spanned Quirindi to Nundle, looking at the 

Carboniferous–Permian volcanics of the 

western Tamworth Belt. After recouping at the 

Nundle Pub we travelled through the ‘Hills 

of Gold’ to look at the oldest and most 

complexly-deformed rocks of the NEO, the 

Cambrian ophiolitic fragments of the Weraerai 

terrane and Siluro-Devonian island-arc rocks 

of the Gamilaroi terrane, strung out along the 

Peel Fault at Hanging Rock and Barry Station. 

The outcrops of red ribbon-bedded chert at 

Chaffey Dam provide a world-class exposure 

of a Devonian sediment starved accretionary 

complex. Day 3 concentrated on the granites 

between Tamworth and Armidale. Bruce 

Chappell gave a fascinating account of the 

history of the alphabet (S- and I-type) granite 

classification scheme and the controversies 

surrounding granite formation. 

Conference proceedings 

Day 1 of the conference was dedicated 

to Peter Flood who has organised several 

of these conferences in the past and contributed 

greatly towards our understanding 

of the tectonic evolution of the New England 

Orogen. There were excellent talks and new 

data relating to the age and origin of 

accretionary terranes, with some fascinating 

comparative presentations of modern collisional 

analogues in the Himalaya and Japan. 

At the conference dinner that night, Barry 

McKelvey gave a marvelous account of the 

history of the University of New England 

Geology department (1939–2010) and the 

enormous contribution that has been made 

by UNE geology staff of the past 70 years. 

On Day 2, heavy rain and road closures 

threatened to spoil the three mid-conference 

fieldtrips to Bingara-Barraba, Hillgrove-Halls 

Peak and Wongabinda Metamorphic 

Complex, but with a few diversions we 

managed to still see some excellent outcrops 

and it gave everyone a chance to have a chat 

and get to know one another on the bus. 

Day 3 morning session was dedicated to the 

UNE alumni and we witnessed one of the 

most entertaining talks by John Jackson 

regarding his GeoArt, which has been used for 

the front cover of the conference proceedings 

— see his website www.therockdoctor.com.au 

for examples. John highlights the effectiveness 

of art in communicating complex geological 

science and immense timescales to the 

general public. The afternoon session was 

dedicated to Bruce Chappell and his lifetime 

work on the granites of the New England. He 

has compiled a granites database for all of 

the New England and it is available for download 

at www.brucechappell.com.au/. Lots of 

new data were presented regarding the age 

and composition of granites in the New 

England which represents a substantial leap 

forward in our understanding of the evolution 

of the New England during the Permian– 

Triassic. 

Day 4 was dedicated to Paul Ashley for his 

lifetime contribution on the economic 

geology in the NEO area. It was fantastic 

to see such a strong turn-up by industry 

geologists and there were some exciting presentations 

on new deposits being found in 

the NEO. The talks on tectonics, granites and 

mineralisation made it glaringly apparent 

that the NEO has all of the right ingredients 

to host world-class mineral deposits and in 

theory should be no less or more prospective 

than other prospective orogens such as the 

Lachlan Fold Belt. Historically there has been 

plenty of gold found in the New England and 

yet there has been a general reluctance to 

commit serious exploration dollars to what is 

probably one of the most under-explored 

regions in Australia. Hopefully this will 

change in the future and conferences such as 

these will build closer ties between industry, 

government and academics. 

The low registration costs ($390 or $50 for 

students), inexpensive venue and the lowcost 

fieldtrips made this conference a 

particularly successful and well-attended 

event by academics, industry, retirees and 

students. Hopefully these types of ‘low-key’, 

region-specific conferences will become 

more prevalent in the future and we look 

forward to continuing the New England conference 

series more regularly in the future. 

The committee members comprise: Solomon 

Buckman, Peter Flood, Phil Blevin, Bruce 

Chappell, Jonathan Aitchison, Paul Ashley, 

John Patterson and Mel Jones. http://sites. 

google.com/site/newenglandorogenconference/ 

SOLOMON BUCKMAN 

University of Wollongong, NSW 

IGCP 491 final report 

2010 saw the publication of the final volume 

for the project IGCP 491, ‘Middle Paleozoic 

vertebrate biogeography, palaeogeography 

and climate (2003–2007)’ in Palaeoworld 

V19, edited by co-leaders Zhu Min (China) 

and Gavin Young (Australia) — see page 45 

for review copy. Several Australians 

contributed major reviews to this volume; 

free download is possible as a sample issue 

from www.sciencedirect.com/ 

Another recently published volume with 

further final contributions is a special 

Festschrift for Chinese Academician 

Meemann Chang, published by F Pfeil Verlag 

(www.pfeil-verlag.de/ef1.html). This work is 

the culmination of two decades of activity by 

members of the International Working Group 

on Paleozoic microvertebrates and related 

workers begun in the late 1980s. Australians 

have worked within the predecessor projects 

IGCPs 328 and 406, as well as in 410, 421, 

and 499 (more info at www.unesco.org). One 

successor project to IGCP 499 has been 

proposed this year. 

Australasian working group sum up 

Brisbane: Many years of work came to fruition 

for Sue Turner (Geoscience consultant and 

publisher) with the publication during 2007 of 

the Handbook of Paleoichthyology Agnatha 

Part 1B, Thelodonti. 

TAG March 2011|21

Sue is currently working on the earliest 

sharks from Canada, the mid-western USA 

and Australia and has also been part of an 

international collaborative effort reviewing 

the affinities of conodonts. 

Carole Burrow (Queensland Museum) continues 

working on the Early Devonian fish faunas 

of the Gaspé Peninsula, Canada, as well 

as other research including the Early 

Devonian shark Mcmurdodus (with Gavin 

Young). She is also working with John Long 

(formerly Museum Victoria, now LA County 

Museum) and Kate Trinajstic (Curtin 

University) on Middle–Late Devonian acanthodians 

of Antarctica, and with John Long, 

Mike Coates (Chicago) and Michal Ginter 

(Warsaw) on the Gogo shark. 

Over the last four years Sue and Carole have 

been involved in a joint research effort with 

colleagues from Belgium, Canada, France, 

Germany and USA to show that conodonts 

are not vertebrates. 

Canberra: Australian National University 

research included Gavin Young’s fieldwork on 

the NSW south coast; he also attended the 

2007 CAVEPS meeting in Melbourne in April, 

and the Early Vertebrate Symposium in 

Uppsala, Sweden in August. At the CAVEPS 

meeting he hosted IGCP 491 co-leader Zhu 

Min, plus two of his students from Beijing. 

Greg Bell started a project on the placoderm 

material from Jemalong quarry, near Forbes, 

NSW (which produced the jaw of the 

tetrapod Metaxygnathus, one of only two 

Devonian tetrapod body fossils found outside 

of Europe and America), and successfully 

trialled some acid-preparation techniques. 

Collaboration continued with Tim Senden 

(ANU) on XCT scanning and 3D visualisation 

of numerous Devonian fish specimens. 

Ken Campbell and Dick Barwick have 

continued their work on the morphology and 

phylogeny of Devonian dipnoans, again collaborating 

with Jan den Blaauwen 

(Amsterdam) and Tim Senden. Alex Ritchie 

(now in Canberra) continues to work on 

undescribed material in the huge Australian 

Museum collection of fossil fish. 

Melbourne: At La Trobe University, work on 

the Viséan Ducabrook Formation was completed, 

although further field work is 

planned, subject to funding. Anne Warren 

published her description of the new half 

skull of Ossinodus, while Kate Parker is nearing 

completion of her paper on the Horton 

Bluff rhizodontid cranial and postcranial 

material, and was co-author on a new 

Barameda paper. Tim Holland continues his 

PhD on basal tetrapodomorph fish with John 

Long and Pat Rich (Monash University); his 

poster presentation at CAVEPS featured his 

Honours work on the rhizodontid Barameda, 

and he also talked on the tetrapodomorph 

Marsdenichthys from Mt Howitt, Victoria. At 

Museum Victoria, Brian Choo presented some 

of his PhD results on palaeoniscoids from the 

Gogo Formation in a poster and talk at 

CAVEPS and a talk at the Uppsala meeting. 

John Long has continued working with 

Kate Trinajstic (Curtin University), and has 

contributed to papers on the Fairy Formation 

vertebrates and soft-tissue preservation in 

Gogo placoderms with regional coauthors. 

Perth: Kate Trinajstic was part of Annette 

George’s sedimentology group at the 

University of Western Australia, and has continued 

her biostratigraphic work on the 

Canning Basin and Lennard Shelf while at 

Curtin University to determine the time 

frame of significant events in the evolution 

of the reef complexes in the Canning Basin. 

She was recently awarded the Malcolm 

McIntosh Prize for Physical Scientist of the 

Year. She will host the 13th CAVEPS 

Symposium in Perth in April. 

Sydney: Zerina Johanson (formerly Macquarie 

University, now Natural History Museum 

London) published in 2007 on the Fairy 

Formation fauna (mid-Pragian of eastern 

Victoria) with regional coauthors John Talent, 

John Long and Jim Warren, and Philippe 

Janvier (Paris). Her projects included publications 

co-authored with many of the Victorian 

Paleozoic fossil-fish workers. 

New Zealand: Ian Macadie continues working 

on the Lower Devonian microvertebrates of 

Reefton, NZ. 

IGCP 491 participants examine Silurian rocks in 

Gotland, Sweden. Image courtesy Sue Turner. 

22 | 

TAG March 2011

The Ediacaran puzzle: this first year of the IGCP 

587 report will shed light on this fascinating 

time period that marked the rise of animal life. 

Image courtesy Peter Trusler. 

Acknowledgements: Carole Burrow and 

Susan Turner gratefully received grant-in-aid 

from the Australian IGCP Committee to 

participate in IGCP 491 conferences. 

CAROLE BURROW and SUSAN TURNER 

IGCP 587: Of identity, facies and 

time: the Ediacaran (Vendian) 

Puzzle 

The first year of this project saw a significant 

number of research papers published and 

four exhibitions were fielded during 2010: 

Wildlife of Gondwana (with venues in 

Singapore, Adelaide and Darwin, Australia), O 

Mundo Perdido Timor-Leste (a major upgrade 

for the ConocoPhillips-sponsored geology 

exhibition in Dili and two small regional 

exhibitions in the towns of Aileu and Baucau 

in Timor-Leste) and another launched in 

Melbourne at the Monash Science Centre, 

Monash University, titled The Artist and the 

Scientists. 

The catalogue for this last exhibition is the 

book The Artist and the Scientists: Bringing 

Prehistory to Life by Peter Trusler, Patricia 

Vickers-Rich and Thomas H Rich (see p 45 for 

a review copy). The research of Guy 

Narbonne and Jim Gehling was featured in 

the beautiful conclusion of David 

Attenborough’s First Life documentary 

released in late 2010 by the BBC and 

Atlantic Productions. 

http://firstlifeseries.com/ 

The principal meeting of 2010 was 

Precambrian Life, Time, and Environment: 

Evolving Concepts and Modern Analogues 

held in Lucknow from 2–9 February. This 

meeting involved a field trip to the Sub- 

Himalayas (see website for more detail) 

examining a wide range of topics related to 

the Neoproterozoic sequences that crop out 

in this region — the Krol Belt in which 

Cryogenian Pre-Blaini to Tal Formations are 

exposed. Upwards of 100 were in attendance 

at the meeting in Lucknow with representatives 

from North America, Europe, 

Australia, China and India. The meeting 

planned for the Flinders Ranges was not run 

due to the conflict of schedules of several of 

the participants and so delayed until 2011 or 

2012 with the prospect of running it in concert 

with the IGC to be held in Brisbane in 

2012. 

Further information on the project may be 

found at www.geosci.monash.edu.au/precsite 

PAT VICKERS-RICH 

Monash University 

IGCP 506: Jurassic marine and 

non-marine correlation 

(2005–2009) 

Final report of the Australian working 

group 

The Jurassic, spanning approximately 

199.6–145.50 Ma, is an important period in 

geological history for the evolution of life 

and Earth. This IUGS:UNESCO IGCP project 

involved further refining global Jurassic correlation, 

particularly for international nonmarine 

exposures, and defining boundaries 

with the K–T (Cretaceous/Triassic) boundary 

not yet resolved on a global scale. In 

addition, the project looked at knowledge of 

major geological events during the Jurassic 

interval as well as their record and potential 

correlation. As the international chronostratigraphical 

system is based on marine strata, 

the aim was to bring non-marine strata into 

the system using selected fossil content and 

geological data (Turner et al, 2009). 

Australians produced several further publications 

towards the aims during the last years 

of the project. It should be noted that there 

is very little funding to pursue work on 

Jurassic projects in this country. 

Brisbane: In the very limited time he has for 

palynological research these days, John 

McKellar (Geological Survey of Queensland) 

completed a paper in conjunction with Noel 

de Jersey on the stratigraphic location of the 

Triassic–Jurassic and Hettangian–Sinemurian 

boundaries in the eastern Clarence–Moreton 

Basin, employing palynological (miospore) 

correlation with the marine sequences in 

New Zealand, which have been accurately 

dated by their associated fauna. The manuscript 

has been reviewed and will be published 

in Palynology. 

Susan Turner (Monash University Geosciences 

and Queensland Museum Geosciences) is 

working on Jurassic sharks from Talbragar, 

NSW (see mention in Turner et al, 2009) with 

the discoverer Steve Avery (independent 

palaeontologist, NSW). They hope to submit a 

paper to the Journal of the Linnean Society of 

NSW in 2011. 

Turner, S, et al, 2009, ‘Jurassic marine–non-marine in 

Australia’ IGCP 506 Symposium volume. GFF 131 (part 

1–2, June), p 49–70. 

Acknowledgement: Sue Turner thanks the 

Australian IGCP Committee for grant aid to 

continue work during the life of this project. 

SUSAN TURNER 

Geoscience consultant and IGCP 506 

Australian working group co-ordinator 

Sponsorships results in free 

access to Data Metallogenica 

The Foundation Sponsors of AMIRA’s global 

mineral deposit database, Data 

Metallogenica, have increasingly been taking 

up their rights to nominate and then provide 

indefinite free access to universities in developing 

countries. This gives those universities 

an important learning resource for their geological 

teaching and research, and will eventually 

lead to better graduates in those 

countries. 

Data Metallogenica (www.datametallogenica.com) 

is supported by over 100 companies, government 

agencies and professional societies 

from around the world. Currently over 30 

universities from Africa, Asia, South America 

and Oceania have been provided with access 

for all staff and students to join. This is in 

addition to the 20 or so universities in developing 

countries that currently support DM. 

For further information contact Alan Goode, 

(alan.goode@amirainternational.com) at 

AMIRA. 

TAG March 2011|23

Young Earth Science News 

In the news this issue: 

■ Top young Earth Scientists 

■ GSAV Student research scholarship 

■ YES Network the 1st International Associate of the AGI 

Top young Earth Scientists 

This year, TAG presents a series of snapshots 

of young Australian geologists. Our first profile 

is from Lloyd White, PhD Candidate at the 

Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian 

National University. If you would like to contribute 

to this section please send a short synopsis 

of yourself and your research to 

tag@gsa.org.au. 

Lloyd White, 27, PhD candidate 

TAG: What sparked off your interest in Earth 

Science 

LW: Apart from toy plastic dinosaurs and 

dino-riders Well, when I was 15, my highschool 

science teacher gave me a textbook to 

study whilst travelling overseas with my 

parents. The rainy Scottish days ensured that 

I had plenty of time to read. For some reason 

the chapter on plate tectonics, volcanoes and 

earthquakes really grabbed me. 

TAG: Who or what has influenced the 

direction of your career/research 

LW: There are a number of people who have 

influenced my career and direction. Paul 

High up in the field: ANU Earth Scientist Lloyd 

White (centre, with Delhi University PhD student 

Rajesh Singh, and hotel owner CP Dorjey) at 

Penzila Pass in Zanskar, next to the Durung 

Drung glacier. 

Lennox at the University of New South Wales 

showed me the importance of field mapping 

as well as how much fun it could be. I therefore 

tried to get involved in as many field 

projects as possible, and this often required 

Paul to create tailored ‘special topic’ courses 

so that we could do more mapping. 

As for my career direction, I decided to try as 

many jobs as possible and eliminate the ones 

that I didn’t enjoy. I worked casually for a 

coal-seam gas company and the NSW 

Geological Survey, and spent summers 

working underground at the Mineral Hill mine 

near Condobolin, NSW, and in an open-pit 

mine at Kalgoorlie, WA. 

During my Honours year, I was accepted for 

Geoscience Australia’s graduate program. This 

was a great experience, and allowed me to 

sample a range of jobs, including structural 

mapping in the northern Yilgarn Craton, 

searching for potential carbon-sequestration 

sites in Queensland, developing an Intellectual 

Property policy and mapping the fault architecture 

of Australia’s southern margin. After 

two years at GA, I headed back to university 

to complete a PhD with Gordon Lister at ANU. 

Whilst each person that I have worked with 

along the way has shaped me in some-way or 

another, Gordon’s curiosity, enthusiasm and 

passion for science has definitely rubbed off! 

TAG: Where was your best field trip experience 

and why 

LW: My best (and worst) field trip experience 

has been working in the north-west Indian 

Himalaya. During my second trip to the region 

in 2008 I flew into the town of Leh in Ladakh 

in far northern India. I spent a week sampling 

granitoids over some of the world’s highest 

road passes near the Indian/Pakistan/Chinese 

borders. This was followed by a two-week trek 

and sampling campaign though a remote valley 

in the Zanskar region, the most beautiful 

and peaceful place I’ve ever visited. However, 

during our return journey, our car suffered five 

flat tyres and we were eventually forced to 

stop travelling for 24 hours by successive 

roadblocks and rioting during local elections. 

TAG: In a few words describe your career/ 

research area. 

LW: My primary interest is plate tectonics 

and structural geology. However, I realised 

the importance of constraining structural 

observations in time, so I’ve been trying to 

learn about the ins-and-outs of U–Pb 

geochronology and how these can be used 

to constrain tectonic reconstructions. 

TAG: Where would you like to go with Earth 

Science in the future What’s your dream job 

LW: My ultimate dream job would be a highpaying 

one with no stress — which I don’t 

think exists! I would like to keep research as a 

major component of my future job. However, 

I see the time, stress and disappointment 

associated with academics applying for 

research funding and, more times than not, 

being rejected. 

GSAV Student research 

scholarship 

With the help of the GSAV’s Student Research 

Scholarship, I was fortunate enough to be 

able to travel to and present my research at 

the 2010 International Symposium on 

Foraminifera. The conference was held at the 

University of Bonn, Germany from 5–10 

September and was attended by several 

hundred people from many different countries 

around the world. For those of you who don’t 

know, foraminifera are single-celled protists 

which can be useful in biostratigraphy and 

palaeoceanography amongst other things. I’ve 

been using benthic foraminifera to chart the 

fine-scale evolution of the Tsushima Current 

in the Sea of Japan and the Leeuwin Current 

which flows along the western coastline of 

Western Australia. 

24 | TAG March 2011

Peter in his study area at the Sea of Japan. 

My talk was held in the morning of the 

Tuesday session and although I was extremely 

nervous, I think it went well. If one can 

measure success by the number of people who 

didn’t fall asleep, then I would have to say I 

was highly successful! Well, at least I didn’t 

hear any snoring! Having my talk early in the 

week meant that I was able to concentrate on 

the rest of the sessions for the week and I 

GEOQuiz 

This time we look at how 

some poets have treated 

geological matters. 

1. The publication Rock me hard...rock me soft is a 

survey of the history of the GSA. The title comes 

from a poem The Shakedown on the Floor — “Rock 

me hard in steerage cabins / Rock me soft in first 

saloons…”. Who wrote it 

2. “And some rin up hill and down dale, / knapping 

the chunky stanes to pieces wi’ hammers, / like sae 

many road makers run daft. / They say it is to see 

how the world was made.” Who wrote this picturesque 

description of geological field work 

3. Who wrote: “It seemed that out of battle I 

escaped / Down some profound dull tunnel, long 

since scooped / Through granites which titanic 

wars had groined.” 

4. Thomas Huxley wrote an essay entitled ‘On a 

piece of chalk’, but who wrote: “To see the world 

in a grain of sand / And heaven in a wild flower, / 

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand / And eternity 

in an hour.” 

5. The Rev Peter Bulkeley wrote a poem beginning: 

“The solid earth, before an angry God, / 

Shakes at the terrors of His awful nod. / The 

balance of the mighty world is lost— / Its vast 

learned quite a lot. It was great to be able to 

meet and discuss with people who I know of 

by name and reputation only! Putting a face 

to a name is always good. 

There was a choice of mid-conference field 

trips and I decided to visit the Messel Pit, a 

UNESCO World Heritage site that hosts amazingly 

well-preserved Eocene fossils, some displayed 

in a recently finished visitor’s centre. 

From fossilised bats and fish to birds and even 

a caiman, this is definitely worth a visit if you 

are ever in the area! We went on a tour of the 

pit, met some of the palaeontologists who are 

searching for fossils and even got to look for 

some fossils ourselves. I wasn’t successful, but 

that is OK since you aren’t allowed to take 

things from the pit anyway. All in all, attendance 

at the conference was a valuable 

opportunity to meet other researchers in my 

field, expand my knowledge of the field and to 

see where the future lies. Presentation of 

research at an international conference is a 

major milestone for any PhD research student 

and I wish to thank the GSAV for making it 

possible. 

PETER HOILES 

University of Melbourne 

This article was originally published in The Victorian 

Geologist, November 2010 

foundations, in confusion toss'd, / Through all the 

hollows of its deepest caves / Rock like a 

vessel foundering in the waves.” What was he 

describing 

6. In the same vein, who wrote: “All things have 

second birth; / The earthquake is not satisfied at 

once.” 

7. “In time the Rockies may crumble, / Gibraltar 

may tumble, / they’re only made of clay…”. Who 

had this insight into the power of erosion (even if 

the lithology was wrong) 

8. Here is another poetic description of erosion 

and time: “Suppose there is a mountain, of very 

hard rock, much bigger than the Himalayas; and 

suppose that a man, with a piece of the very finest 

cloth of Benares, once every century should touch 

that mountain ever so slightly — then the time it 

would take him to wear away the entire mountain 

would be about the time of an Aeon." To whom is 

this saying attributed 

9. Who wrote “The poetry of earth is never dead: / 

when all the birds are faint with the hot sun, / And 

hide in cooling trees, a voice will run / From hedge 

to hedge about the new-mown mead.” 

10. An easy one to finish. Who wrote; “My love 

for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: 

/ — a source of little visible delight, but necessary” 

(Presumably to a geologist the eternal rocks are a 

source of visible delight.) 

BY TOR MENTOR 

Answers on p 38. 

YES Network the first 

International Associate of the 

AGI 

The YES Network, a professional global network 

for the support of early-career professionals 

and students in the geosciences, is the 

first International Associate of the American 

Geological Institute (AGI) Federation. 

The YES Network is a global network of individuals 

who are early-career geoscientists, 

students, or professionals interested in 

supporting the development of the next 

generation of geoscientists. It was formed as a 

result of the International Year of Planet Earth 

in 2007 and held its first international 

Congress in Beijing, China in 2009. That meeting 

focused on climate, environmental and 

geoscience challenges facing today's society, 

as well as career and academic pathway challenges 

faced by early-career geoscientists. 

Since the congress, the YES Network has more 

than tripled its membership and now has 

members in 102 countries working on geoscience 

projects in every corner of the globe. 

The YES Network aims to establish an interdisciplinary 

global network of individuals 

committed to Earth Science solutions to the 

global society's challenges, and furthering the 

IYPE motto of ‘Earth Sciences for Society’. As 

the YES Network is a fully self-organising network, 

there are no membership fees or dues. 

All information about YES Network activities 

and its ongoing events are posted on the YES 

Network site: www.networkyes.org/ 

To inquire about YES in Australia please 

contact GSA member Gabriela Perlingeiro at 

g.perlingeiro@uq.edu.au 

To join the GSA as a student member at 

discounted rates head to the GSA website: 

www.gsa.org.au 

TAG 

apologises... 

TAG 157, p 29: 

The Tennant Creek earthquakes were 

cited as occurring in 1987, they in 

fact occurred in 1988. TAG would 

further like to clarify that the earthquake 

return period referred to in 

the article as 20 years applies to 

quakes of magnitude 6.5 and above. 

TAG apologises for these errors. 

TAG March 2011|25

Feature 

Combating Australia’s water crisis 

In early 2011 Australia experienced flooding on a scale not 

seen in decades in Queensland, northern NSW and Victoria, 

possibly associated with a strong La Niña. Yet prior to this deluge 

Australians faced the prospect of tighter water restrictions in 

cities and decreased water allocations to farms due to a 14-year 

meteorological drought. While surface water reservoirs are currently 

full in many parts of the country, water managers and regulators 

are under pressure to secure sources of fresh water for the 

future that are less susceptible to, or dependent upon, these 

extreme weather conditions. 

With such extremes and with Australia’s rivers experiencing 

some of the world’s most variable flows, managing our fresh 

water is a complex issue. One of the most important aspects of 

our water supply is groundwater. Groundwater is the generic 

term applied to any water located beneath the ground 

surface, residing in spaces between soil grains or in 

fractures and faults in rock. It represents one of the 

largest potential sources of fresh water, currently 

accounting for more than 30% of water consumed by 

Australians and providing the only reliable source of water for 

some rural and regional communities. Although the recent rain 

has replenished surface water stores, the subsurface groundwater 

reservoirs which were depleted during the drought will take 

much longer to recharge. 

Continuous bodies of saturated regolith or fractured rock are 

called ‘aquifers’. Numerous aquifers are present across Australia, 

from the Great Artesian Basin underlying almost one-quarter of 

the country to small patches of weathered calcarenite in the 

Nullarbor. Not all aquifers are created equal, however, with 

variations in aquifer permeability or groundwater composition 

determining the suitability of aquifers for exploitation. Over the 

last century hydrogeologists have been working to characterise 

Australia’s groundwater resources and, while a fundamental 

understanding has emerged, continuing research is needed to 

ensure sustainable management of Australia’s finite subsurface 

water resources. 

The critical role groundwater is expected to play in meeting 

Australia’s future water needs is emphasised in the National 

Water Initiative, the Australian Federal Government’s ‘blueprint’ 

for water reform. This recognition increased the profile of 

hydrogeology in Australia and led to the foundation of the 

National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training 

(NCGRT) in 2009. The NCGRT, a multi-year, multi-million dollar 

Centre of Excellence jointly funded by the Australian Research 

Council and the National Water Commission (NWC), is intended 

to build linkages between groundwater researchers, regulators, 

and managers within Australia and to provide a training ground 

for the next generation of groundwater researchers and 

professionals. The Centre has 20 member organisations 

representing groundwater stakeholders and regulators, 

researchers, and managers working to ensure the continued 

supply of high-quality groundwater. 

26 | TAG March 2011 

Within the Geological Society of Australia, the 

Environmental Engineering & Hydrogeology Specialist Group 

(EEHSG) was established in response to the roles Society members 

are playing in the characterisation, management and protection 

of the environment, including surface water and 

groundwater. The EEHSG provides a forum through which 

Society members involved in the growing fields of environmental 

engineering and hydrogeology can share aspects of their 

research with Society members across Australia. 

Groundwater research in Australia encompasses a wide 

range of topics, from scientific methods for examining water 

quantity and quality to social, economic and political assessments 

of water-use practices and policies. The work of the 

Australian hydrogeology community, comprising the largest 

national chapter within the International Association of 

“Understanding the linkage between groundwater 

and surface water is critical...” 

Hydrogeologists (IAH), routinely features at conferences such as 

the IAH Annual Congress (which Perth will host 2013) and 

Groundwater 2010 – The Challenge of Sustainable Management, 

which was held from 31 October to 4 November 2010 at the 

National Convention Centre in Canberra. 

EEHSG members were amongst the presenters at 

Groundwater 2010, jointly hosted by the GSA and the IAH, 

which brought together delegates from industry, government, 

water management authorities, and research and education 

institutions to share new developments in groundwater research 

and management in Australia and overseas. An overview of the 

major scientific themes from the conference is provided in the 

following sections, highlighting the innovative groundwater 

research being conducted in Australia. 

Groundwater quality 

Advances in chemical analysis techniques and equipment have 

enabled more accurate measurement of natural and artificial 

substances in the environment, as well as the identification of 

trace chemicals that previously eluded detection. As many of 

these chemicals can have negative effects on human health and 

the environment if present in large concentrations, the 

improved ability to detect and measure them has provided 

a means to assess the health of groundwater systems. As our 

ability to detect pollutants improves, researchers are better able 

to examine the fate, transport and toxicity of contaminants in 

order to determine how they can best be remediated. 

Salinisation is one of the major mechanisms influencing 

groundwater quality in Australia. Salinisation is a naturally 

occurring process, albeit one which can be greatly enhanced by 

land-use practices and climate variability. Elevated salinity can 

limit the usability of groundwater and can also impact the 

quality and structure of soils.

In recent years, salinity research has evolved beyond a discussion 

of primary and secondary salinity, to more nuanced 

approaches integrating the numerous processes than can contribute 

to groundwater salinity. These new approaches, typified by 

the Hydrogeologic Landscape Framework being applied in New 

South Wales, integrate geology, geography, vegetation and land 

use, providing a way to understand the combined impact of all 

the factors controlling salinity in a landscape. Such methods provide 

land users and managers with better tools for identifying and 

managing salinity hazards and can be applied to other groundwater 

quality problems such as sodicity and acidity. 

Much of the research in groundwater chemistry does not 

involve contaminants, however. Variations in the concentration of 

different substances, when combined with traditional physical 

groundwater measurements, can act as ‘tracers’, providing insight 

into a range of environmental processes. The use of environmental 

tracers (naturally occurring elements, compounds or isotopes, 

and also including other properties such as temperature) or 

anthropogenic tracers (chemicals such as industrial and agricultural 

compounds, as well as health and beauty products used in 

the home) is becoming an increasingly common part of groundwater 

investigations. 

Australian researchers are finding innovative applications for 

chemical tracers, regularly using them to determine the age of a 

water body, identify recharge sources for an aquifer, quantify 

gains or losses of water in reservoirs or canals, and assess the 

causes of salinity in groundwater. For example, the use of groundwater 

chemistry to aid mineral exploration is increasing as 

improved understanding of ore deposit chemistry, water–rock 

interaction and metal transport in groundwater provide geochemists 

with an additional, cost-effective means to assay 

prospective ore deposits. 

Groundwater–surface water connectivity 

Many groundwater systems are hydraulically connected to surface 

water bodies, both natural (rivers, lakes and oceans) and 

artificial (weirs, dams and tailings ponds). While aquifers are 

commonly recharged by leakage from the surface, lakes and 

rivers can also be dependent on groundwater discharge for 

maintaining water levels, particularly during drier periods. For 

several inland aquifer systems in Australia, the link between 

rivers and the aquifers they overlie is the major factor determining 

the sustainability of regional water resources. 

Researchers are using combinations of physical and chemical 

techniques to quantify such linkages. Artificial tracers such as 

fluorescent dyes and high-salinity brines have been injected into 

aquifers to identify connections between rivers and aquifers, 

often producing vivid results. Geophysical surveys, especially 

effective in regions with contrasting water salinities, are used to 

detect losses and gains by surface water bodies, while vertical 

profiles of environmental tracers (such as water temperature) 

within a channel and underlying sediments are being used to 

measure connectivity at specific locations. 

Understanding the linkage between groundwater and surface 

water is critical in regions where ecosystems have evolved that 

rely upon groundwater for continuing health, even under nondrought 

conditions. These groundwater-dependent ecosystems 

(GDE) can include large bodies such as wetlands and lakes, as 

well as springs, billabongs, estuaries and even underground 

environments. As the exact dependence of each GDE and the 

vulnerability of each ecosystem to variations in groundwater 

availability must be assessed on a case-by-case basis, researchers 

are examining GDEs across Australia to determine how groundwater 

flows contribute to healthy ecosystems and to assess the 

quantity and quality of groundwater flows required to sustain 

each individual GDE. 

Several schemes have been developed in order to categorise 

GDEs, including characteristics such as the quantity of groundwater 

required and major threats to GDE health. These schemes 

provide a means for identifying GDEs and aid in the calculation 

of the minimum flow required to meet base ecological and 

environmental needs, which can then be included in the environmental 

flow requirements for a given water body. 

Climate variability 

Future climate is one of the major uncertainties to consider when 

characterising all groundwater resources. The potential impacts 

of different climate scenarios on Australian groundwater 

Murray–Darling freshwater research centre staff member 

Prue McGuffie checks water for dissolved oxygen, pH, salinity 

and temperature at Tala creek on Billa Downs near Euston, 

NSW. Image courtesy Murray–Darling Basin Authority. 

Groundwater storage in a holding pond in the Murrumbidgee, NSW. 

Image courtesy Kyle Horner 

TAG March 2011|27

A site in the Capertee Valley, near Lithgow, NSW, with signs of damage from 

dryland salinity in the foreground. Image courtesy Leah Moore and Kathleen 

Harvey. 

The author sampling surface water at the Murrumbidgee River, one of NSW 

and the ACT’s main river systems. Image courtesy Kyle Horner. 

resources are significant, as changes to the amount and timing of 

precipitation, as predicted by the different global climate models, 

would result in substantial modifications to recharge. 

“The potential impacts of changes to available water 

resources are social as well as environmental.” 

These could potentially alter the quantity and quality of groundwater, 

with some regions seeing increases in available groundwater 

supplies while other regions experience substantial decreases. 

The potential impacts of changes to available water resources 

are social as well as environmental. From groundwater-dependent 

ecosystems to groundwater-dependent communities, numerous 

potential conflicts over available water resources could result from 

a strong alteration in climate. Identifying aquifer systems that 

would be altered by climate change will help target regions where 

the development of management strategies is necessary. 

Aquifer recharge 

One tool in the management toolbox that is increasingly being 

considered for adapting water supplies to future climate 

regimes is aquifer recharge. This refers to a range of techniques 

developed to enhance the recharge of groundwater systems, 

either through improving natural recharge processes or by discharging 

water into the subsurface. Aquifer recharge techniques 

have been used to prevent salt-water intrusion into fresh 

aquifers, replenish groundwater in areas of over-extraction, 

protect reservoir water from evaporation via subsurface storage, 

and exploit natural processes to purify grey-water resources 

such as urban runoff and sewage effluent, thereby closing the 

loop in water infrastructure and adding a greater degree of 

security to stressed water supplies. Aquifer-recharge techniques 

range from the simple impoundment of surface water behind 

dams or weirs, to more involved developments using shallow 

infiltration-drip networks or direct injection into aquifers 

through pumping bores. 

Aquifer-recharge techniques are even being 

considered as a means to mitigate climate change, 

not just adapt to it. Geological sequestration 

of CO 2 is a type of carbon capture and storage 

project in which carbon dioxide gas captured from 

emissions sources would be condensed into a liquid and then 

injected into the subsurface, typically into former oil reservoirs or 

deep groundwater aquifers. Researchers are exploring the myriad 

of technical hurdles associated with CO 2 sequestration, such 

as diffusion or leakage from reservoirs, acidification and the 

suitability of different geologic media for use in sequestration 

projects. While the challenges are numerous, the potential 

benefits of CO 2 sequestration are manifold and have enticed 

substantial investment by industry and government, ensuring 

continued research in this field. 

Groundwater today and tomorrow 

The vital role groundwater will play in meeting Australia’s future 

water needs is reflected both by State and Federal policy and by 

the breadth of hydrogeology research being conducted in 

Australia. Growing public and political awareness of groundwater’s 

value and vulnerability is helping drive the research, 

which encompasses the scientific, political and societal 

dimensions of water use. With continuing support, many of the 

critical questions about Australia’s groundwater resources can 

be answered, better preparing Australians to face whatever the 

future may hold. 

KYLE HORNER 

Australian National University 

28 | TAG March 2011

Special Report 

Climate change — a view from the Quaternary 

Instrumental measurements over the last 

150 years indicate that atmospheric CO 2 , global 

temperature and sea level are all rising. CO 2 

is an infrared absorbing gas, so CO 2 -induced 

warming is likely. However, the patterns of 

temperature and CO 2 rise do not exactly match. 

Other factors are therefore implicated, such as solar 

brightness, atmospheric water vapour, CH 4 and 

NO 2 , dust, volcanic eruptions, sulphate aerosols, 

surface albedo changes and so on. 

Instrumental records of global climate are 

rather short when it comes to estimating future 

climate changes because many of the processes 

operate on very long timescales. Current debate 

about the causes and consequences of global 

climate change can be informed by looking at the 

geologic record of past climate changes on 

timescales from hundreds to billions of years. 

Here, I focus on global climate changes during the Quaternary 

Period, or the last 2.6 million years. In so doing, I attempt to 

identify the major drivers (causes) of long-term climate change and 

their potential relevance to present and future climate changes. 

Note that I use the term “climate change” in the general sense, to 

encompass both natural and anthropogenic drivers unless 

otherwise stated. 

The Cenozoic Era — prelude to the Quaternary 

The last 65 million years (the Cenozoic Era) is a period of dramatic 

global climate changes (Fig 1), since the dinosaurs famously went 

extinct after a giant asteroid impact in the Gulf of Mexico (Schulte 

et al, 2010). The period from 65 to about 35 Ma (broadly equivalent 

to the Eocene and Paleocene Epochs) saw a significantly warmer 

world, with no Antarctic ice sheet, sea levels perhaps some 60 m 

higher than present and atmospheric CO 2 concentrations more 

than three times modern levels. During that time, the Australian 

continent lay well to the south of its current position and the dominant 

vegetation was warm-to-cool temperate rainforest, including 

in central Australia (Martin, 2006). Indeed, until about 15 Ma, 

Nothofagus trees were still growing in Antarctica at latitude 78°S 

(Lewis et al, 2007; Ashworth, personal communication, 2010). 

From about 35 Ma (latest Eocene), the Antarctic ice sheet 

progressively increased in size, global temperatures decreased, sea 

levels fell and central Australia became progressively more arid as 

the Australian continent moved northwards to straddle the zone of 

subtropical high pressure that is characterised by mid-latitude 

deserts on both sides of the equator. Pollen evidence suggests that 

seasonal aridity may have been present in the Lake Eyre Basin 

(Alley, 1998) as early as 40 Ma (Middle Eocene), but desert-like 

conditions were probably not fully established until around three 

million years ago (Late Pliocene). For example, the oldest known 

desert landforms in Australia are stony deserts in northern South 

Australia which Fujioka et al (2005) showed, using cosmogenic 21 Ne 

FIGURE 1: Global climate during the Cenozoic Era (the last 65 million years) 

based on oxygen-isotope analyses of deep-sea foraminifera (from Zachos 

et al, 2008). The deep-ocean temperature scale on the right applies only to 

the time before major Antarctic ice sheets formed, ie prior to 35 million 

years ago, a period sometimes referred to as a “Greenhouse world” when 

atmospheric CO 2 levels exceeded 1000 ppm (cf ~390 ppm today) and global 

temperatures were significantly warmer than today. 

FIGURE 2: Earth’s orbital parameters affecting solar radiation distribution. 

(Based on figures from Zachos et al, 2001 and data from Berger & Loutre, 

1991.) 

TAG March 2011|29

and 10 Be dating, formed 2–4 million years 

ago. In contrast, major desert dunes and 

saline lakes are thought to have formed 

sometime later, around one million years 

ago (Chen and Barton, 1991; Fujioka et al, 

2009). 

The Quaternary Period 

(the last 2.6 million years) 

The so-called Quaternary ice ages represent 

the time when major Northern Hemisphere 

ice sheets waxed and waned in response to 

variations in the Earth’s orbital parameters 

— precession, obliquity (axial tilt) and 

eccentricity, which vary with frequencies of 

approximately 23 000, 41 000 and 100 000 

years, respectively (Fig 2). The Serbian 

mathematician, Milutin Milankovitch, 

considered that ice-sheet growth and 

decay is strongly linked to summer 

insolation budgets (which he laboriously 

calculated by hand) at high latitudes in the 

Northern Hemisphere (Fig 3), particularly 

through changes in precession and 

obliquity (changes in eccentricity have a 

much smaller effect). When northern 

summers are cool (low obliquity and 

Northern Hemisphere summer at aphelion), 

snow melt is limited and ice sheets can 

grow, whereas when summers are warm (high obliquity and 

Northern Hemisphere summer at perihelion), snow melt increases 

and ice sheets will decrease in size. This link between Earth’s orbit 

and climate is usually referred to as the Astronomical or 

Milankovitch theory of climate change. 

Variations in Earth’s orbital parameters can also be calculated 

into the future, based on planetary masses and orbits within the 

solar system. These calculations show that summer radiation budgets 

at high northern latitudes have been decreasing over the last 

10 000 years and will reach a minimum in about 2000 years time. 

Already, insolation values are almost 10% lower than 

10 000 years ago, and the Earth should have been cooling since 

about 3500 years ago, allowing for a 6000–7000 year lag between 

orbital forcing and ice-sheet response. This lag is partly because 

direct insolation forcing alone is insufficient to cause the growth and 

decay of the massive ice sheets that periodically covered large areas 

of Scandinavia, North America and Russia — insolation changes 

also trigger a range of complex feedback mechanisms, eg through 

changes in ocean and atmospheric circulation, surface albedo 

(reflectivity) and greenhouse gases, all of which are slow to operate. 

The major glacial–interglacial fluctuations of the Quaternary 

are wonderfully reconstructed from detailed analyses of deep-sea 

sediment cores and, more recently, of ice cores more than 3 km 

deep, retrieved from Antarctica (Fig 4). Air bubbles trapped in the 

ice allow past concentrations of various trace gases in the atmosphere, 

including CO 2 , to be determined. The isotopic composition 

of the ice can also reveal past temperature changes extending back 

to 800 000 years ago (eg Luthi et al, 2008). Note the strong 

the last 800 000 years and 100 000 years into the future, based on astronomical 

data (after Berger and Loutre, 1991). Data available from: 

http://gcmd.nasa.gov/records/GCMD_EARTH_LAND_NGDC_PALEOCLIM_INSOL.html 

correlation between temperature and CO 2 records at the scale of 

Fig 4, but that at high resolution CO 2 lags T by about 800 years. This 

lag is often claimed to demonstrate that atmospheric CO 2 concentration 

is a consequence rather than a cause of global warming, but 

in fact the two go hand-in-hand — initial warming is triggered by 

insolation changes which then pushes CO 2 higher, and then causes 

further temperature increase and so on in a positive feedback loop. 

Warm to cool climate: 15 million years ago, Nothofagus trees (inset) were 

still growing in Antarctica at latitude 78°S. Image courtesy NASA/GRACE 

team/DLR/Ben Holt Sr. Inset image courtesy Brad Pillans. 

30 | TAG March 2011 FIGURE 3: Calculated mid-summer (July) insolation variations at 65°N for

FIGURE 4: Glacial-interglacial temperature 

(upper curve) and CO 2 fluctuations (lower 

curve) recorded in the Dome C ice core from 

Antarctica (from Luthi et al, 2008). MIS = 

Marine Isotope Stage, with odd numbers 

corresponding to interglacial (warm) periods 

and even numbers corresponding to glacial 

(cold) periods. The Holocene Epoch (officially 

the last 11 700 years) is MIS 1, the current 

interglacial period. T I – T IX = glacial 

terminations, characterised by rapid 

global warming and rising CO 2 levels. 

Some further important things to note in Fig 4 are that: 

1) Interglacials (periods when global climate is similar to present) 

represent only about 15% of the time. In other words, during much 

of the last 800 000 years, global climate was significantly colder 

than present; 

2) Not all interglacials are identical in structure and duration, but 

they are all characterised by rapid warming at the end of the 

previous glacial interval — these times of rapid change are referred 

to as glacial terminations; 

3) CO 2 concentrations reached a maximum of around 300 parts per 

million (ppm) in all interglacial periods including the present 

(Holocene) interglacial, until industrial emissions drove it up to the 

current CO 2 level of 390 ppm, and still rising. 

Highly detailed records of Quaternary climate are also available 

from speleothems in caves located in south-east China (Wang et al, 

2001; Cheng et al, 2009), with the chronology based on precise 

U/Th dating with 2σ uncertainties of ±100 years on speleothems 

120 000 years old — even better than the age uncertainties in ice 

cores of similar age, based on annual layer counting. The δ 18 O ratio 

in the Chinese speleothems reflects the summer/winter precipitation 

ratio, and Wang et al (2001) also showed that the strength of 

the summer monsoon correlates with summer insolation values at 

30°N (the latitude of the caves), punctuated by millennial-scale 

events that are also recorded in Greenland ice cores and North 

Atlantic sediments. These results confirm that there were massive 

and rapid linked hemispheric changes in ocean and atmospheric 

circulation, driven by orbital variations. 

Discussion 

On timescales of millions of years, major controls on global and 

regional climates include such things as atmospheric composition 

and plate tectonics. For example, high-latitude land masses in both 

hemispheres were a prerequisite for glaciation in both hemispheres 

in the Quaternary. 

On timescales of hundreds to thousands 

of years, other factors also become important, 

including variations in the Earth’s orbit, 

sea-level changes and changes in ocean and 

atmosphere circulation systems. Global climate 

can also be perturbed by major volcanic 

eruptions which inject massive amounts of 

dust into the upper atmosphere that effectively 

acts as a heat shield to incoming solar 

radiation. Progressive closure of the Panama 

seaway, between the Atlantic and Pacific 

Oceans, in the late Pliocene, is considered to 

be a possible trigger for increased ice build up in the Northern 

Hemisphere, through increased flow of warm water to the North 

Atlantic via the Gulf Stream current (Sarnthein et al, 2009), an 

important moisture source to nourish Quaternary ice sheets. 

The well-known American palaeoclimatologist, Bill Ruddiman, 

has highlighted a number of significant differences between the 

present (Holocene) interglacial and previous interglacials 

(Ruddiman 2003a, 2006), including: 

1) Despite falling summer insolation values at high northern 

latitudes, since about 10 ka, ice volumes have not significantly 

increased; 

2) Atmospheric concentrations of both methane and CO 2 have 

increased over the past several thousand years, whereas they 

should have been decreasing in response to decreasing insolation, 

if the pattern of previous interglacials is a guide. 

Ruddiman (2003b) has suggested that anthropogenic emissions of 

CO 2 and CH 4 , associated with early agriculture in Eurasia, have 

increased atmospheric concentrations of these two gases since 

8000 and 5000 years ago, respectively. Furthermore he has argued 

that these anthropogenic emissions have caused an extended 

period of global warming in the face of decreased summer solar 

radiation budgets (controlled by orbital variations) at high northern 

latitudes which would have otherwise led to global cooling in 

the last few thousand years (Fig 5). A climate model simulation by 

Kutzbach et al (2010) suggests that these anthropogenic emissions 

of CO 2 and CH 4 have resulted in an increase of about 2.7°C in mean 

global temperature during the last ~5000 years. 

Concluding remarks 

Back in the 1970s and early 1980s, when orbital variations were 

first conclusively demonstrated to be major drivers of Earth’s 

climate during the Quaternary, the coming of the next ice age was 

widely publicised, based on falling summer insolation values at 

high northern latitudes. Indeed, Australian writer, Colleen 

McCullough had the coming ice age as a backdrop to her book 

TAG March 2011|31

A creed for the third millenium, the text of which indicates that she 

was well aware of the science at the time. 

However, the predicted ice age has not come and Bill 

Ruddiman’s analysis of the reasons seems quite compelling to me. 

Could it be that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, since the 

intensification of agriculture in the mid Holocene, have staved it 

off Even if Ruddiman is wrong about the anthropogenic sources of 

the increased CO 2 and methane, we are still left with the climatic 

consequences of these higher greenhouse gas concentrations, 

whatever their source(s). It is tempting to speculate that the Little 

Ice Age, when global temperatures were about 1°C lower than 

present in the 16th to 19th centuries, may have been a failed 

attempt by the Earth’s climate system to trend even colder. 

The Quaternary Period offers great opportunities for 

understanding global climate change, but so do earlier time 

periods. Geological archives of past climate change merit careful 

study, to better understand the Earth’s complex climate system. 

I think that the Geological Society of Australia, as well as individual 

members, should be encouraged to promote such important 

research. Regardless of whether climate change is from natural or 

anthropogenic causes, or a combination of both, human societies 

would benefit from knowing what to expect in the future and to 

plan how best to adapt. 

BRAD PILLANS 

Research School of Earth Sciences, ANU 

This article was developed from talks given to GSA Divisions across the country in 

2010 and early 2011. 

ABOVE: FIGURE 5. Phase relationships between Northern Hemisphere summer 

insolation, ice volume and greenhouse gases during the last 15 000 REFERENCES 

years (Ruddiman, 2003). Changes in orbital parameters (precession and 

Alley, NF, 1998, ‘Cainozoic stratigraphy, palaeoenvironments and geological evolution of the 

obliquity) suggest that global cooling (increased ice volume) should have 

Lake Eyre Basin’ Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 144, p 239–263. 

been occurring since around 5000 years ago. Instead, increases in 

Berger, A, and Loutre, MF, 1991, ‘Insolation values for the climate of the last 10 million years’ 

anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture have led to 

Quaternary Science Reviews Vol 10, issue 4, p 297–317. 

global warming of around 2.7°C (Kutzbach et al, 2010). 

Chen, XY, and Barton, CE, 1991, ‘Onset of aridity and dune-building in Central Australia: 

sedimentological and magnetostratigraphic evidence from Lake Amadeus’ Palaeogeography, 

Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 84, p 55–71. 

BELOW: Lost creatures of the Quaternary: climate change and possibly 

Cheng, H, et al, 2009, Ice age terminations Science, 326, p. 248-252. 

human activities are blamed for the extinction of animals such as 

Fujioka, T, et al, 2005, ‘Global cooling initiated stony deserts in central Australia 2–4 Ma, 

Thylacoleo carnifex, preserved in the Victoria Fossil Cave, Naracoorte 

dated by cosmogenic 21 Ne- 10 Be’ Geology, 33, p 993–996. 

Caves National Park. Image courtesy Karora. 

Fujioka, T, et al, 2009, ‘Australian desert dunes initiated with Pliocene–Pleistocene global 

climatic shift’ Geology, 37, p 51–54. 

Kutzbach, JE, et al, 2010, ‘Climate model simulation of anthropogenic influence on greenhouse-induced 

climate change (early agriculture to modern): the role of ocean feedbacks’ 

Climatic Change, 99, p 351–381. 

Lewis, AR, et al, 2007, ‘Major middle Miocene global climate change: evidence from East 

Antarctica and the Transantarctic Mountains’ Geological Society of America Bulletin, 119, 

p 1449–1461. 

Lisiecki, LE, and Raymo, ME, 2005, ‘A Pliocene–Pleistocene stack of 57 globally distributed 

benthic 18O records’ Paleoceanography, 20, PA1003. 

Lüthi, D, et al, 2008, ‘High-resolution carbon dioxide concentration record 650 000–800 000 

years before present’ Nature, 453, p 379–382. 

Martin, HA, 2006, ‘Cenozoic climatic change and the development of arid vegetation in 

Australia’ Journal of Arid Environments, 66, p 533–563. 

Ruddiman, WF, 2003a, ‘Orbital insolation, ice volume, and greenhouse gases’ Quaternary 

Science Reviews, 22, p 1597–1629. 

Ruddiman, WF, 2003b, ‘The anthropogenic greenhouse era began thousands of years ago’ 

Climatic Change, 61, p 261–293. 

Ruddiman, WF, 2006, ‘Orbital changes and climate’ Quaternary Science Reviews, 25, 

p 3092–3112. 

Sarnthein, M, et al, 2009, ‘Mid-Pliocene shifts in ocean overturning circulation and the onset 

of Quaternary-style climates’ Climate of the Past, 5, p 269–283. 

Schulte, P, et al, 2010, ‘The Chicxulub asteroid impact and mass extinction at the 

Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary’ Science, 327, p 1214–1218. 

Wang, YJ, 2001, ‘A high-resolution absolute-dated late Pleistocene monsoon record from Hulu 

Cave’, China Science, 294, p 2345-2348. 

Zachos, JC, et al, 2001, ‘Trends, rhythms, and aberrations in global climate 65 Ma to present’ 

Science, 292, p 686–693. 

Zachos, JC, et al, 2008, ‘An early Cenozoic perspective on greenhouse warming and carboncycle 

dynamics’ Nature, 451, p 279–283. 

32 | TAG March 2011

Special FORUM Report 


Warming of planets in the solar system has sometimes 

been advocated as evidence that the Earth’s warming 

is unrelated to human activities. The reasoning is that, 

since global warming is being experienced not only on Earth but 

also on other planetary objects, therefore Earth’s warming has 

nothing to do with humans, but is due to astronomical causes. 

There is no doubt that astronomical factors, for example the 

position of a planet relative to the Sun, are responsible for the 

temperatures measured on the surfaces of planets in the solar 

system, but this is only one component of global planetary 

surface temperatures. Other parameters affecting planetary 

temperatures are: geological activity, planet composition, albedo, 

gravity and biological activities (where present). Plugging various 

combinations of the values of these parameters into the 

functions used to model surface planetary temperatures will 

occasionally lead to the same results, and to similar trends, eg 

warming or cooling, even though the modulations of the 

parameters in the relevant equations are different. 

Many fora in the blogosphere discuss warming of some outer 

planets of the solar system. Plenty of information (and 

disinformation) is already provided in those fora, and won’t be 

repeated here. Instead, I want to stress the importance of a 

proper understanding of the physical principles underpinning the 

way the temperatures of remote planetary objects are measured, 

the complexities inherent in the establishment of physical 

parameters needed to calculate those temperatures, and also the 

fact that when discussing planetary object temperatures one 

needs to be specific as to what temperature one is referring to. 

There exist various definitions (eg effective temperature, subsolar 

temperature, equilibrium temperature) with different 

implications in regards to the interpretation of the causes of 

temperature variations. A very clear textbook summary of the 

physics of planetary temperatures can be found in de Pater and 

Lissauer (2010). A short and incomplete synthesis is given here. 

By balancing the insolation of a body with its re-radiation, ie 

the energy irradiated on the surface of the planetary body by the 

Sun during daytime (in the visible and ultraviolet wavelengths), 

and the radiation re-emitted (at infrared wavelengths) by the 

body throughout the day, the equilibrium temperature Tp of a 

planetary surface can be calculated using the equation (Zeilik and 

Gregory, 1998): 

T p = (1-A) 1/4 (R S /2r p ) 1/2 T S 

where A is the albedo, R S is the radius of the Sun, 

r p is the distance of a planet from the Sun, expressed in 

astronomical units (r Earth = 1), and T S is the temperature of the 

Sun (T S = 5800 K). For planets with atmospheres and which 

generate internal heat this equation is insufficient to model 

surface temperatures. Comprehensive models for calculating 

planetary surface temperatures require also knowledge of the 

spatial and spectral variation of the albedo, the circulation and 

heat retention of planetary atmospheres and the mode of 

transfer of heat from the planetary interior to the surface 

(whether by convection or conduction). Obtaining, from the 

astronomical observations of objects at the periphery of the solar 

system, the data needed to model their surface temperatures is a 

scientific challenge in itself. Furthermore, modelling the values of 

temperatures on their surfaces requires a number of assumptions 

to be made in regards to bodies which we can observe only from 

a distance. It is worth noting though, that the same physical 

principles applied to the modelling of surface temperatures of 

remote planetary objects apply to Earth’s case. It is illogical to 

accept the results of those models for very far away objects for 

which there is a limited set of observations, and not to accept the 

results of the same models when applied to Earth, for which a 

ponderous record of observations and direct measurements of 

physical parameters exists that can be fed into the models. 

The hypothesis of a linked Mars–Earth system in which 

parallel climate variations on both planets would be due to solar 

variability was initially made by Sagan and Young (1973). This has 

led some authors to surmise that we can learn much about 

Earth’s climate patterns from the study of Mars (eg Page, 2007). 

Presently the Martian surface is a dry desert, with temperatures 

too low for liquid water to exist. However, in a number of papers, 

observation of low-latitude platy surfaces and polygonal terrains 

has been interpreted as evidence of very recent freeze–thaw 

Weather on Mars: HiRISE images reveal dark markings on the dune-covered 

surface of Mars. Dust devils form as the surface is warmed by sunlight and 

are especially prevalent in the Martian summertime. Image courtesy 

NASA/JPL/University of Arizona. 

TAG March 2011|33

that there may be a link between the Martian and Earth’s 

climates applies only to the case of a putative ice age on Mars 

coinciding with Earth’s Pleistocene glaciation (Page et al, 2009) 

and to long-term climate patterns, not to the last few decades of 

Earth’s global warming. 

Modelling suggests that the Martian surface may be warming 

(Fenton et al, 2007). This is, however, for reasons unrelated to any 

warming occurring on Earth. In spite of its atmosphere being 

tenuous, Mars has weather, as is known from the direct 

observation of violent dust storms. The storms effectively 

redistribute dust particles of different mineralogies across the 

Martian surface, so that decadal variations of the albedo patterns 

on the surface have been observed. The available record of the 

distribution of the Martian albedo features provides a database 

that has been used recently to model the positive feedback effect 

of surface albedo changes on the strength of the winds. Fenton 

et al (2007) carried out simulations that predict enhanced wind 

stress in darkened areas, and decreased wind stress in brightened 

areas, thus indicating that the effect of albedo shifts feeds back 

into the atmospheric circulation system, strengthening the winds 

that generate the albedo shifts. The simulations also predict a 

surface temperature increase of ~0.65 K, which in turn causes 

further increases in wind stress, producing additional cumulative 

effects on the albedo–wind patterns system. The calculated value 

of temperature increase will probably be refined by use of higher 

resolution data sets, such as those currently being acquired by 

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, but it should be evident that the 

causes of the predicted Martian temperature increase are 

unrelated to any climate change process currently happening on 

Earth. 

In conclusion, the causes of temperature variation trends 

need to be investigated for each planet based on the specific 

physical conditions of each. Similarities of trends (warming or 

cooling) that can be observed on more than one planet cannot be 

used by default as evidence that one or more common processes 

external to the planets themselves produce the observed trends. 

GRAZIELLA CAPRARELLI 

University of Technology, Sydney 

ABOVE: HiRISE image of polar pits containing gullies, small-scale slope features 

that require some amount of liquid water to form. The observation of 

low-latitude platy surfaces and polygonal terrains has been interpreted as 

evidence of very recent freeze-thaw cycles on Mars. Image courtesy 

NASA/JPL/University of Arizona. 

BELOW: Atmosphere of Mars taken from low orbit by the Viking Orbiter, 1976. 

Image courtesy NASA. 

cycles on Mars (eg Murray et al, 2005; Page, 2007; Page et al, 

2009). These interpretations are not conclusive: there are still 

poor age constraints on the polygonal terrains, and low-latitude 

platy surfaces have been alternatively interpreted as having a 

volcanic origin (eg Keszthelyi et al, 2004; 2008). In any event, the 

implication from the recent freeze–thaw cycles interpretation 

REFERENCES 

de Pater, I, Lissauer, JJ, 2010, Planetary Sciences (2nd edition). Cambridge University 

Press, 674 pages. 

Fenton LK, et al, 2007, ‘Global warming and climate forcing by recent albedo 

changes on Mars’ Nature 446, p 646–649. 

Keszthelyi, L, et al, 2008, ‘High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) 

images of volcanic terrains from the first six months of the Mars Reconnaissance 

Orbiter Primary Science Phase’ JGR 113, E04005, doi: 10.1029/2007JE002968. 

Keszthelyi, L, et al, 2004, ‘Icelandic analogs to Martian flood lavas’ G3 5(11), 

Q11014, doi: 10.1029/2004GC000758. 

Murray, JB, et al, 2005, ‘Evidence from the Mars Express High Resolution Stereo 

Camera for a frozen sea close to Mars’s equator’ Nature 434, p 352–355. 

Page, DP, 2007, ‘Recent low-latitude freeze-thaw on Mars’ Icarus 189, p 83–117. 

Page, DP, et al, 2009, ‘Dating martian climate change’ Icarus 203, p 376–389. 

Sagan, C, Young, AT, 1973, ‘Solar neutrinos, martian rivers, and praesepe’ Nature 

243, p 459–460. 

Zeilik, M, Gregory, SA, 1998, Introductory astronomy and astrophysics (4th edition). 

Thomson Learning Inc, USA, 515 pages + appendices. 

34 | TAG March 2011

Cam Bryan’s Geojottings 

Reflecting on colour 

Whatever would geologists do without colour A geological 

map without colour would be very difficult to 

read. You only have to look at the published maps in 

some journals where the map units — in black and white — are 

differentiated by numbers, or a complex legend of dots, dashes, 

cross hatching and lines of various spacings, to realise how 

reliant we are on colour. For the increasing number of geologists 

who produce computer images rather than maps, colour again 

is vitally important: who wants to look at a series of greyscales 

While geological maps have been produced in colour for many 

years (William Smith’s famous map of 1815 was in colour), colour 

photographs of geological interest are a more recent 

phenomenon. Even today we are more likely to see field 

photographs published in print in black and white, although they 

may appear in colour in the online version. This prompts me to 

wonder whether the print version of journals will survive the 

competition from the online version. A survey by the Reynolds 

Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri found that when 

it comes to newspapers many iPad users preferred to read the 

news on their tablets and were likely to drop their print 

subscriptions. With the rapid growth in ‘tablet technology’, online 

seems to be the way to go. My personal view used to be that I 

would much prefer to read a journal/book in bed than take a 

computer to bed, but the iPad and other tablets are changing that. 

Back to colour. While we admire the black and white 

photographs of Ansel Adams, Frank Hurley and Henri Cartier 

Bresson, most of us would prefer to take colour photographs: 

indeed the world is in colour, not black and white! Surely it was 

only the technological limitations of the time that enabled black 

and white photography to persist as long as it did. 

My wife often accuses me of being colour blind. In fact my 

problem is not being able to put a name to a subtle shade of 

colour. I sympathise with the BBC commentator who, on a state 

occasion, described a lady’s smart dress as being ‘dark black’ in 

colour. Fortunately there are numerous colour scales available, 

one of the best-known being the Munsell Color System. 

According to Wikipedia, “Professor Munsell, an artist, 

wanted to create a “rational way to describe colour” that would 

use decimal notation instead of colour names (which he felt 

were “foolish” and “misleading”), which he could use to teach 

his students about colour”. He started work on the system in 

1898 and published it in 1905; it has had several updates since 

then. If you have access to the Munsell colour chart then 

5Y 5/10 will mean more than ‘golden yellow’, but Wordsworth’s 

poem Daffodils would not read so well: ‘I wander’d lonely as a 

cloud / That floats on high o'er vales and hills, / When all at once 

I saw a crowd, / A host, of 5Y 5/10 daffodils…’ 

It is relatively easy to match the colour of a rock to the 

colour on a Munsell colour chart and indeed many papers will 

record the colour as (for example) ‘reddish brown (5YR 5/6)’ or 

‘greenish grey (10Y 6/1)’. A recent paper labels both 5YR 5/6 and 

5Y4/6 as ‘yellowish red’, so I am obviously not alone in my 

inability to accurately name colours. 

While the four-colour theorem states that no more than 

four colours are required so that no two adjacent regions have 

the same colour, geological maps need many more colours to 

adequately display the rock types and ages of the various units. 

Problems arise in standardising the colour of different age units 

and then matching them with printers’ colours. FM Gradstein 

and JG Ogg (Appendix 1 in Gradstein et al, 2004) pointed out 

that there are some six well-known time-scale charts, all of 

them differing in their use of colour. 

The work of the Commission for the Geological Map of the 

World (CGMW) culminated in the production of the UNESCO 

Geological World Atlas which used 35 colours in printing the 

atlas. As Gradstein and Ogg said (p 465): “This [number of 

colours] was impractical for…low-cost commercial printing 

…and represents a standard unlikely to be emulated by many 

organisations, government or private”. In addition the CGMW 

scheme involves a mixture of the standard electronic-media 

colour schemes. Gradstein & Ogg favoured two colour schemes, 

both in RGB modes: one matches the CGMW map and is used in 

the International Stratigraphic Chart (which the AJES 

‘bookmark’ timescale uses); and the other matches the US 

Geological Survey colour code. 

It is worthwhile reading Gradstein and Ogg’s appendix in full 

to appreciate the ins and outs of producing a standard set of 

colours for geochronological units. 

But colour has also crept into rock and mineral names. A few 

obvious ones come to mind: amber, bluejohn, blueschist, 

greensand, greenschist, greenstone, greywacke, redbeds and 

umber, and there must be many more! 

And of course some of our well-known geologists are 

colourful(!): Black, Brown(e), Gray/Grey, Green, White (I leave 

you to add the initials). 

REFERENCES 

FM Gradstein, JG Ogg, and AG Smith, 2004, A geologic time scale, 

Cambridge University Press. 

Did you know 

your Geologist 

(from p 15) 

Geological Survey of Western Australia geologist Rick 

Rogerson in the Pilbara, WA, August 1999. The trip was 

run by Martin Van Kranendonk and GSWA to inspect 

mapping on the North Shaw 1:100 000 sheet and was 

attended by industry, academics and GSWA staff. Image 

courtesy John Greenfield, Chief Geologist, Regional 

Mapping, Geological Survey of NSW. Please send your 

‘Know your Geologist’ to tag@gsa.org.au 

TAG March 2011|35

ARC Discovery projects for funding to commence 2011 

Discovery Grants 

PROJECT SUMMARY GRANT 

Geology 

Water-fluxed continental melting 

Roberto F Weinberg, Pavlina Hasalova 

Administering organisation: 


Active tectonics of East Timor: geomorphic 

responses to an evolving slab rupture 

Michael A Sandiford 


University of Melbourne 

Multiscale and multiphase modelling of 

deformable porous media 

Hans B Muhlhaus, Huilin Xing, Guoxiong G Wang, 

David A Yuen 


University of Queensland 

Iron isotope variation in subduction magmas: 

Links to fluid flux and oxidation of the mantle 

wedge 

John D Foden, Marlina A Elburg, Galen P Halverson 


University of Adelaide 

Consequences of extraterrestrial impacts on the 

biosphere and geosphere 

Fred Jourdan, Eric Tohver 


Curtin University of Technology 

Multiple vertical tectonic movements in a 

continental interior: consequences of flatsubduction 

and foundering of an oceanic 

plateau 

ZhengXiang Li, Martin Danisik, Yigang Xu 



The early history of atmospheric oxygen 

Birger Rasmussen, Ian R Fletcher, Andrey Bekker 



Fleshing out the fossil record: using organically 

preserved soft tissues and bone to explore the 

evolution of unique vertebrate characters 

Katherine M Trinajstic, Catherine A Boisvert, 

Per E Ahlberg, Zerina M Johanson, Moya M Smith 



Submarine volcanoes: degassing of silicic 

magma with implications for ascent and 

eruption processes 

Rebecca J Carey 


University of Tasmania 

Melting of rocks happens during active continental tectonics, where 

rock deformation, water flow and melting feed into each other in a 

complex system. This project studies how water gets into and melt 

gets out of hot continental rocks to form magmatic bodies that control 

continent chemical evolution and origin of magmatic mineral deposits. 

Through analysis of the landscape evolution of East Timor, this project 

will establish new insights into basic dynamic processes responsible 

for formation of mountain systems. By quantifying slip rates on active 

faults and erosion rates across its landscape, it will provide new 

constraints on natural hazards for East Timor, and the broader region. 

The physics of our nation's most pressing engineering problems involve 

simultaneous processes on multiple scales. Our research conducts 

massive computer simulations of processes involving fluid flow in 

rock on a broad range of scales. Simulations of this kind make 

future technologies such as CO 2 sequestration more predictable and 

manageable. 

The plates of the outer tectonic shell of our Earth are in ceaseless 

motion; their collisions create huge earthquakes and their collapse into 

the Earth introduces surface water to these hot regions at >150km 

depth, creating melting and volcanic eruption. This project will use iron 

isotopes to map this surface water as it is introduced to the mantle. 

This project will investigate whether high-velocity meteorite impacts 

can account for the Earth's mass extinctions and whether meteorite 

impacts and mass extinctions were synchronous. This work will help 

scientists understand the long-term climatic and biologic effects of 

massive injections of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. 

This project will investigate how the subduction of particularly thick 

oceanic crust impacts on the landscape, climate, structure and 

composition of the adjacent continent. It will help in understanding 

the history and distribution of mineral and hydrocarbon resources of 

similar provinces in Australia. 

Atmospheric oxygen is essential for advanced life and its accumulation 

on the ancient Earth was accompanied by profound environmental, 

climatic and biological change. This project will clarify the complex 

interactions between the rise in atmospheric oxygen and changes 

in the Earth's surface environment, extreme climate change and 

biospheric evolution. 

This study integrates developmental, molecular and morphological 

data in both fossil and living species to provide insights into the 

evolutionary mechanisms which formed the musculo/skeletal system. 

Uncovering these evolutionary pathways has the potential to describe 

mechanisms common to all vertebrates and informs us about our own 

evolution. 

This research project will advance the basic understanding of how 

magma ascends and erupts in submarine settings. This study will 

identify the relative roles and timing of volcanic gas release from 

silicic magmas, using cutting-edge techniques newly available at 

the Australian Synchrotron. 

2011: $110 000 

2012: $110 000 

2013: $110 000 

2011: $100 000 

2012: $100 000 

2013: $100 000 

2011: $140 000 

2012: $160 000 

2013: $140 000 

2011: $70 000 

2012: $65 000 

2013: $65 000 

2011: $60 000 

2012: $60 000 

2013: $50 000 

2011: $70 000 

2012: $70 000 

2013: $70 000 

2011: $160 000 

2012: $140 000 

2013: $140 000 

2014: $135 000 

2015: $110 000 

2011: $160 000 

2012: $160 000 

2013: $130 000 

2014: $130 000 

2015: $130 000 

2011: $105 000 

2012: $90 000 

2013: $85 000 

36 | TAG March 2011


Deep time in the deep Earth: using traceelement 

diffusivities to constrain durations 

of deep-Earth processes 

Hugh S O'Neill, Joerg Hermann, Carl Spandler 



Geophysics 

The effective strength of oceanic 

plate-bounding faults 

Craig J O'Neill, Juan C Afonso 


Macquarie University 

New observational constraints on 2004–2007 

rupture of the Sumatra megathrust 

Phil R Cummins 



Frequency-dependent seismic properties of 

cracked and fluid-saturated crustal rocks: 

a systematic laboratory study 

Ian Jackson, Douglas R Schmitt 



Three dimensional geospatial model of the 

Australian continent from geologicallyconstrained 

inverse modelling of the Earth's 

gravity and magnetic fields 

Peter G Betts, Laurent Ailleres, Mark W Jessell, 

Eric A de Kemp 



The link between the deep Earth 

and its dynamic surface 

Fabio A Capitanio, Louis N Moresi, Philip Allen 



Taming the nonlinearity of geophysical 

inversions 

Malcolm Sambridge, Brian L Kennett 



Three-dimensional subduction models of 

overriding plate deformation and mantle flow 

using laboratory and numerical methods 

Wouter P Schellart, Alexander R Cruden, 

David R Stegman 



Evaluation of deep-Earth resources requires knowing how long 

geological processes took, some record of which is often preserved 

by gradients in the chemical compositions of minerals. Experiments at 

very high temperatures and pressures will determine how this evidence 

can be used to constrain the durations of a rich variety of geological 

processes. 

This project will address the anomalously weak behaviour of the 

seismically active faults on the boundary of the Australian plate, in 

three key geodynamic areas. This will constrain the mechanisms which 

weaken such faults, and produce a model for their effective strength 

and evolution over geological timescales. 

This project will develop innovative methods and generate new data 

for studying the rupture of giant subduction zone earthquakes and 

the generation of destructive tsunamis. This will lead to a better 

understanding of these phenomena that will enhance our ability to 

forecast, warn of and map the hazards associated with them. 

Novel experimental techniques will be used to build a better 

laboratory-based understanding of the seismic properties of fluidsaturated 

crustal rocks. The outcome will be an improved capacity 

to monitor the presence of fluids in diverse situations ranging from 

geothermal power generation and waste disposal to earthquake fault 

zones. 

This project enhances Australia's reputation in the integration of 

geology and geophysics and will create a 3D model of the Australian 

crust that will image and define the geometry of the fundamental building 

blocks of the continent. The outcomes will create new 

concepts for resource exploration and hazard recognition. 

Modelling the two-way interaction of plate tectonics with the actions 

of erosion and sedimentation gives a fundamentally new view of the 

dynamics of our planet and the importance of the surface on the 

deep interior. It will improve our understanding of the formation 

of sedimentary basins, their evolution and their preservation over 

geological time. 

This project will develop new ways to extract information from complex 

geophysical data sets used to construct images of the Earth's interior. 

Applications will be important to indirect imaging problems in the 

physical and engineering sciences and particularly to the discovery of 

resources within the Earth upon which Australian society is dependent. 

This project investigates the interaction of the Earth's tectonic plates at 

subduction zones, places where one plate sinks below another plate 

into the Earth. This is important for understanding the evolution of the 

Australian plate that has active subduction zones to the north and east, 

and how its geological evolution is controlled by subduction. 

2011: $100 000 

2012: $100 000 

2013: $100 000 

2011: $65 000 

2012: $65 000 

2013: $65 000 

2011: $110 000 

2012: $110 000 

2013: $100 000 

2011: $50 000 

2012: $50 000 

2013: $40 000 

2011: $100 000 

2012: $70 000 

2013: $90 000 

2011: $80 000 

2012: $60 000 

2013: $60 000 

2011: $115 000 

2012: $120 000 

2013: $130 000 

2014: $33 000 

2011: $100 000 

2012: $90 000 

2013: $80 000 

Geochemistry 

Origin of silicic magmas in a primitive island 

arc: the first integrated experimental and 

short-lived isotope study of the Tongan– 

Kermadec system 

Tracy A Rushmer, Simon P Turner 


University of New England 

The Tongan arc forms a large portion of the Australian plate boundary 

and is one of the most chemically primitive systems known. Oddly, it 

produces volumes of more evolved, dangerous silicic magmas. The 

results of this project will establish the source of these magmas and 

rates of migration, which are fundamental for understanding volcanic 

hazards. 

2011: $90 000 

2012: $80 000 

2013: $80 000 

TAG March 2011 | 37


Australian dust: its response to, and role in, 

climate change 

Atmospheric dust plumes can affect global climate, but the impact of 

Australian dust on climate is poorly known even though it is a major 

dust source. This project will study the magnetism of dust deposits 

in marine sediments to understand how Australian dust influences 

climate in order to better predict the influence of humans on future 

climate. 

2011: $180 000 

2012: $180 000 

Andrew P Roberts, Patrick De Deckker, 

2013: $180 000 

Marc D Norman, Paul Hesse 



Tracing fluids and rare elements in the crust by Aqueous fluids are responsible for the transfer of elements, metals and 2011: $150 000 

combining microscale oxygen isotope analysis heat in the Earth's crust. This research will trace the mobility of fluids 2012: $130 000 

with geochronology 

and their interaction with minerals using microanalysis of oxygen 2013: $130 000 

Daniela Rubatto 

isotopes and radioactive elements. Understanding fluids is fundamental 2014: $130 000 

to understanding metamorphism and the formation of ore deposits. 2015: $80 000 



A new paradigm for the accumulation and Metastable iron sulphide minerals have a critical role in controlling 2011: $80 000 

persistence of metastable iron sulphides in surface and groundwater quality. This project will transform our 

2012: $80 000 

sulphidic soils 

understanding of the environmental geochemistry of metastable iron 2013: $80 000 

Edward D Burton, Richard T Bush, Mats E Astrom, 

sulfides in sulfidic soils. This will greatly enhance our ability to predict 2014: $80 000 

Stefan Peiffer 

and manage water quality in a wide range of important aquatic systems. 2015: $60 000 


Southern Cross University 

Unravelling the synergistic effect of ocean The purpose of this project is to investigate the role of ocean 

2011: $110 000 

acidification and pore-water advection on acidification and pore-water advection on the release of calcium 

2012: $100 000 

carbonate sediment dissolution: a global 

and alkalinity from carbonate sediments. The expected outcomes 2013: $100 000 

sink for CO 2 

of this project lead to a better understanding of the role of carbonate 

Bradley D Eyre, Isaac R Santos, Ronnie N Glud 

sediments in buffering ocean acidification and the uptake of 

atmospheric carbon dioxide. 



Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience 

When the ice melts: a new perspective on the The project will assemble an unprecedented palaeoclimate time series 2011: $220 000 

causes of Quaternary glacial terminations extending back to 1.2 million years ago that will allow marine and ice 2012: $200 000 

Russell N Drysdale, John C Hellstrom, 

core records to be placed onto an absolute time scale. This will allow 2013: $200 000 

Jonathan D Woodhead, Roland Maas, Silvia Frisia, testing of fundamental hypotheses on why the Earth's climate shifts 

Giovanni Zanchetta, Anthony E Fallick, 

from glacial to interglacial states, with flow-on effects to climate 

Mathieu Daeron, Gerrit Lohmann, Maureen Raymo, models. 

Maria F Sanchez Goni, Christoph Spotl, Eric W Wolff 


University of Newcastle 

The last glaciation maximum climate conundrum This project will show how climate systems in south-east Australia 2011: $120 000 

and environmental responses of the Australian responded to large-scale global change the last time this happened, 2012: $120 000 

continent to altered climate states 

which was about 21 000 years ago. By determining the climate response 2013: $120 000 

James P Shulmeister, Timothy J Cohen, 

in Australia to this change, this project will help predict future response 

Kevin W Kiernan, Craig A Woodward, 

in rainfall and temperature to human-induced and natural climate 

Timothy T Barrows, Justine Kemp, 

change. 

Kathryn E Fitzsimmons, Douglas H Clark 


University of Queensland 

GEOQuiz ANSWERS (from p 25) 

1. Henry Lawson 

7 August 2008 by Tora Asland, Norwegian Minister of Science and 

2. Sir Walter Scott in St Ronan’s Well 

Research. 

3. Wilfred Own Strange Meeting 

6. William Wordsworth in The Prelude. 

4. William Blake Auguries of innocence. 

7. Ira Gershwin in the song Love is here to stay in The Goldwyn 

5. The New England earthquake of 29 October 1653. Some later Follies. 

lines of the poem — “The earth doth heave, / with groanings of 8. The Buddha. 

distress, / Beneath the weight of human sinfulness. / Shall not our 9. John Keats, ‘On the grasshopper and cricket’. 

eyes drop penitential rain, / When all creation travaileth in pain” — 10. Emily Brontë in Wuthering Heights. 

were quoted at the opening ceremony of the 33rd IUGC in Oslo on


Linkage Grants 

Geology 

Four-dimensional lithospheric evolution and 

controls on mineral-system distribution in 

Neoarchean to Paleoproterozoic terranes 

Thompson C McCuaig, Mark E Barley, 

Marco Fiorentini, Anthony I Kemp, John M Miller, 

Elena Belousova, Mark W Jessell, Kim A Hein, 

Graham C Begg, Janet Tunjic, Thomas Angerer, 

Nuru Said, Leon Bagas 


University of Western Australia 

Partner/Collaborating Organisation(s): 

AMIRA International Ltd, AngloGold Ashanti, 

Gold Fields, Northern Territory Geological Survey 

This project will resolve important questions about the links between 

the evolution and preservation of continents and important mineral 

deposits in Australia and West Africa between 2.7 and 1.8 billion years 

ago. The results will improve the understanding of a key period of 

Earth history and make a major contribution to mineral exploration. 

2011: $540 000 

2012: $520 000 

2013: $560 000 

Geochemistry 

Chemical optimisation of geothermal 

heat extraction 

Katy A Evans, Hui Tong Chua 




Geothermal Power Pty Ltd, Greenrock Energy 

Electron flow in iron hyper-enriched acidifying 

coastal environments: reaction paths and 

kinetics of ironsulfurcarbon transformations 

Richard T Bush, Kliti Grice, John W Moreau, 

Leigh A Sullivan, Edward D Burton, Anew L Rose, 

Scott G Johnston, Angus E McElnea, Colin R Ahern 




QLD Department of Environment and Resource 

Management 

Geothermal energy can contribute to our energy needs, but we must 

understand chemical interactions between geothermal fluids, the host 

aquifers and the engineered environment to use the energy safely and 

efficiently. This project will assess those interactions, provide guidelines 

for geothermal energy use and train future geothermal scientists. 

Iron hyper-enriched acidifying coastal lowlands have a direct social, 

economic and environmental impact on communities in many parts 

of Australia. This project will determine how iron transforms and 

accumulates. The new knowledge will be of immediate relevance for 

the remediation of coastal plains. 

2011: $50 000 

2012: $50 000 

2013: $40 000 

2011: $200 000 

2012: $200 000 

2013: $200 000 

Geophysics 

Earthquake hazard in Indonesia 

Phil R Cummins, Paul Tregoning, Malcolm Sambridge, 

Sri Widiyantoro, Fauzi 




Australian Agency for International Development 

Beneath Bass Strait: linking Tasmania and 

mainland Australia using a novel seismic 

experiment 

Nicholas Rawlinson, Anya M Reading, 

Nicholas G Direen 




FrOG Tech, GeoScience Victoria, Mineral Resources 

Tasmania 

This project will deliver breakthrough science that will strengthen 

Indonesia's ability to reduce its vulnerability to earthquake disasters. 

This will be achieved through a collaboration of Australian and 

Indonesian scientists who will fundamentally improve understanding 

of the destructive potential of Indonesian earthquakes. 

A low-cost approach based on background seismic energy and 

earthquake recordings will be used to construct 3D maps of the deep 

structure beneath Bass Strait. Understanding the broad scale geology 

of south-east Australia is of national importance because the area is 

host to an abundance of petroleum, geothermal and mineral resources. 

2011: $300 000 

2012: $250 000 

2013: $250 000 

2011: $70 000 

2012: $90 000 

2013: $54 000 

TAG March 2011|39

Tech Talk 

iGeoLog 

Mangocreations 

$4.99 from the iTunes App Store 

The iTunes App Store site says that ‘iGeoLog is 

the first iPhone App for drawing geological 

sections in the field’. It can produce stratigraphic 

sections showing lithology, fossils and 

comments, and works on both iPhone and iPad. 

iGeoLog basically consists of a geological section 

editor, which enables you to set thickness (you 

can choose between cm, m and km via Settings), 

bulge, horizontal offset, comments and numbering 

for each bed, together with the GPS coordinates, 

if you use it on an iPhone, and a feature 

library so you can add textures to beds (>40 textures 

for sedimentary rocks, >30 textures for 

igneous rocks) and fossils (>60 fossil groups). 

The feature library follows the FGDC Digital 

Cartographic Standard for Geologic Map 

Symbolisation. The section editor lets you add 

the GPS coordinates when you are in the field 

(iPhone only). 

This app is an interesting concept. However, I 

found it a little difficult to use — there is no help 

or instructions. First, it is difficult to set the precise 

thickness of a bed, the slider is quite sensitive 

to movement of your finger and I found that 

in subsequent editing the thickness had changed 

through some unwitting movement I must have 

made on the screen. Second, it took me ages to 

find how to add fossils to the stratigraphic 

section, although no doubt this will become easier 

with practice. However, my main concern is 

what you do with the geological section when 

you have entered it in the iPhone. There is no 

facility to transfer the information directly from 

iPhone to computer via iTunes (as there is with 

some apps) and a screen shot (jpeg) would only 

cover the screen, which is not very helpful if the 

section takes up more than one screen. 

Hopefully these problems will be sorted out in 

future updates. 

While the iPhone version might be handier to 

take into the field, the larger size of the iPad 

should make it much easier to use this app. 

TONY COCKBAIN 

iGeology 

British Geological Survey (BGS) 

Free from the iTunes App Store 

This application is described as ‘Interactive geological 

mapping of the UK’. Although designed 

for the iPhone it will also work on an iPad 

where, unlike many specifically iPhone apps, it 

can fill the screen — paradoxically there is a button 

at the lower right of the screen labelled 1x 

when the screen is filled and 2x when the app 

reverts to ‘iPhone’ size on the iPad. 

Basically the app will produce a geological map 

for anywhere in the UK. You can type in a location 

and the map will be drawn on the screen. 

You can then zoom in or out in the usual way. 

Clicking on a particular unit on the map produces 

a window telling you what formation it is. 

If you want further details you are sent to the 

BGS Lexicon of named rock units which will 

appear in your web browser. Alternatively you 

can go to ‘More detailed maps’ or ‘Geological 

reports’ which sends you to the BGS bookshop or 

BGS GeoReports pages, respectively. 

As well as the maps, there is a news button 

which leads you to a list of ‘BGS in the news’ 

items — presumably BGS press releases. Amongst 

the items mentioned when I wrote this review 

where: ‘Rock salt: an essential mineral keeps the 

country moving’; ‘Could waste heat from power 

stations be warming our homes’ and an advert 

for the position of Director of the Geological 

Survey of Northern Ireland. The news items 

also include a diary section giving details of 

forthcoming meetings in the UK. 

While this app will be mainly of interest to people 

living in the UK, I was keen to review it for 

TAG in the hope that our own geological surveys 

might take up the challenge of producing similar 

apps for each State, Territory and nationally. 

TONY COCKBAIN 

Coming up next issue we review 

the EarthObserver App. 

Got an idea for a geoscience technology review 

Please email contributions to tag@gsa.org.au 

40 | 

TAG March 2011

Book Reviews 

The illustrated history of 

natural disasters 

Jan Kozák and Vladimir Cermák 

Springer 

203 pages 

2010 

What a surprising book! 

Given the title alone, I 

would probably not have 

volunteered to do the 

review — and been the 

loser. Without knowing the authors, only the 

reputation of publisher Springer swayed me to 

bid. 

The authors are senior research scientists at the 

Czech Academy of Sciences. Jan Kozák is also an 

ardent collector of old prints; copper etchings, 

wood blocks, xylographic prints and others, 

more than 2800 of them, of which about 

125 have been selected to illustrate the book. 

The individual studies were probably chosen on 

what prints were available in the collection; the 

juxtaposition of ancient prints and a few maps 

from worldwide websites is interesting. 

European earthquakes are the main focus of the 

study but volcanoes and significant tsunamis are 

also comprehensively discussed and illustrated 

including the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and 

tsunami, Europe’s greatest natural disaster. This 

is a timely review of this disaster given the 

choice of Lisbon by the International Association 

for Earthquake Engineering to host the 2012 

World Conference on Earthquake Engineering. 

The authors have included a valuable introduction 

to both natural disasters and the illustration 

techniques, which is followed by the section 

on volcanic eruptions (Figures 32–81). The 

collection of spectacular pre-photographic 

illustrations of Vesuvius in eruption no doubt 

determined the ordering of the chapters which 

include volcanoes further afield in South 

America, Hawaii, Indonesia and New Zealand. 

A xylographic print of the 1861 Sumatran 

tsunami is discussed in the introduction chapter. 

The seismic events are treated in chronological 

order starting with a Ukranian earthquake in 

1230 (Figure 82) and ending with the 1908 

Calabrian earthquake (Figure 125). One hopes 

that the designers of the proposed bridge across 

the Straits of Messina have read extensively 

about the 1908 and earlier earthquakes there and 

this book would be a good start if they haven’t. 

There is a very useful bibliography and index to 

close the volume, following the last chapter 

called Milestones in seismology. The latter 

includes a list of major earthquakes worldwide 

and historical snippets such as the compilation 

of the first earthquake catalogue, the first intensity 

scale, the first realisation that tsunamis 

were generated by earthquakes and a history of 

earthquake engineering practice. 

Naturally I checked the index. Australia gets a 

mention but only in relation to the Australian 

Plate and the 1868 Chilean tsunami; no squiggly 

dot paintings in sight. 

Nitpicking reviewers might suggest that the 

authors should have engaged an Englishspeaking 

editor but in my opinion the ‘rustic’ 

English does not detract in any way from the 

beautiful illustrations and thoughtful discussion. 

The English could be tidied up in any 2nd edition 

and minor typos fixed, like the reference in the 

index to New Zealand on p 160 which is actually 

blank, and an incorrect date of 1858 for the 1868 

tsunami on p 190. The banner of each earthquake 

section includes the date and it would have been 

useful and consistent if the authors had done this 

for tsunami and volcano events. 

Few seismologists or volcanologists could pass 

up this book but it will appeal to a wider audience, 

those interested in the history of science 

and/or the conjunction of art and science. 

KEVIN McCUE 

Australian Seismological Centre, Canberra 

Ostracods in British 

stratigraphy 

JF Whittaker and MB Hart (Eds) 

The Micropalaeontological Society Special 

Publications published by the Geological 

Society London 

2009 

485 pages 

One of the objectives of the Micropalaeontological 

Society is “to prepare and present in a 

suitable monographic form, stratigraphical 

correlation of the British succession based on 

micropalaeontology”. The present work is an 

update of the earlier book, A stratigraphic index 

of British ostracods, published in 1978, and 

reviews the stratigraphical distribution of 

ostracods in the Phanerozoic of Britain in 

17 chapters. Each chapter is devoted to a 

system, although the Jurassic covers four chapters 

and the Cretaceous three, and the 

Pleistocene has its own chapter. 

The chapters follow the same pattern: 

introduction, history of research, location of 

principal collections, stratigraphy, biostratigraphy, 

palaeoecology, palaeobiogeography, future 

research/conclusions/problems remaining, and 

references. There are maps, correlation charts 

and range charts in each chapter together with 

several plates illustrating the major ostracod 

species in each system. The plate captions are 

extremely detailed covering figured specimen, 

diagnosis, range and remarks. There are 

comprehensive subject and systematic indexes. 

Whittaker’s introduction draws attention to the 

digital photography of Kevin Webb, who scanned 

and resized every image on the 82 original 

plates, saying “I would challenge a reviewer to 

fault his handywork [sic]”. As a reviewer I would 

also congratulate the editors on getting the 21 

authors to fit their contributions into a common 

format, while at the same time allowing them to 

develop their chapters in their own way — as an 

ex-editor I regard this as no mean feat! 

This volume will undoubtedly be a valuable 

research tool for all working on fossil ostracods 

in the British Isles, giving as it does an overview 

of studies on ostracods and their distribution in 

space and time. However, I was rather surprised 

to see that in one chapter the author “...found it 

necessary to erect two new taxa”: it seems a pity 

to ‘bury’ such systematics in what is essentially a 

review volume. 

My own fascination with palaeontology was 

undoubtedly stimulated by Neaverson’s book 

Stratigraphical palaeontology and copies of both 

editions of this work are amongst my treasured 

possessions: no doubt a third edition would be 

called ‘Biostratigraphy’ to keep up with the latest 

jargon. The present work is unashamedly 

about biostratigraphy. In the light of John 

Laurie’s remarks: “It is my firm belief that for its 

long-term survival, palaeontology must leave its 

biostratigraphic roots” in his recent stimulating 

article in TAG (TAG 155, p 23), it is interesting to 

read the various authors’ comments on future 

work on British ostracods. These include: “…still 

a need for primary taxonomic studies” 

(Ordovician); “…for certain horizons primary documentation 

of the faunas is still far from complete” 

(Silurian); “…the overriding problem...is 

ensuring the precise calibration of ostracod faunas 

from different regions and facies” 

(Carboniferous); “much information...[from offshore 

exploration]...remains confidential...but as 

yet much remains unpublished” (Jurassic); “a 

more complete survey of currently known 

Cretaceous Ostracods...would most probably be 

a book in itself”; and “a great deal of further 

work will be necessary to test and improve the 

biostratigraphical scheme presented here” 

(Pleistocene). Perhaps there is still a need to dig 

into the biostratigraphic roots. This excellent 

volume shows what has been done and can be 

done in this field. 

TONY COCKBAIN 

TAG March 2011|41

Early Palaeozoic 

peri-Gondwana terranes: 

new insights from tectonics 

and biogeography 

MG Bassett (Ed) 

Geological Society 

Special Publication 325 

2009 

287 pages 

List price £85.00, 

GSL Members price £42.50, 

other societies price £51.00 

This publication almost certainly has something 

of interest for any geoscientist concerned with 

Early Paleozoic Earth history. The topics explored 

actually range more widely in 

geographic extent than the title would suggest, 

to include aspects of all supercontinents and 

terranes then in existence, even those remote 

from the periphery of Gondwana. Of the dozen 

papers brought together in this volume, 11 were 

presented at a Lyell Meeting symposium that 

took place in London in 2007, jointly sponsored 

by the Geological Society and the 

Palaeontological Association. Together they span 

a critical time extending from the Late 

Precambrian into the Early Devonian, covering 

the evolution of Gondwana and more particularly 

the terranes that were marginal to this supercontinent. 

I have to be careful here that I am using the 

correct terminology, and there is a very useful 

and well-argued paper by Thomas Servais and 

Manuel Sintubin in this book that provides 

guidance in this regard. They assert that 

reference to microcontinents, and especially 

microblocks, in descriptions of regions defined 

solely on the basis of palaeobiogeographical 

affinities and palaeomagnetic constraints on 

palaeolatitude is inexact and potentially 

inaccurate. Terranes is by far the preferred 

terminology to avoid potential confusion 

between definitions based on palaeobiogeographical 

grounds (realms, provinces and 

the like), and geographic concepts of landmasses 

ranging in scale from continents to islands. 

A brief introductory overview of the volume by 

editor Mike Bassett is followed by a substantial 

paper by Trond Torsvik and Robin Cocks 

analysing the evolution of the north-eastern 

and eastern margin of Gondwana extending 

from Turkey to New Zealand. This contribution 

continues the collaboration between these two 

authors, one a palaeomagnetist and the other a 

palaeobiogeographer, which has seen them 

re-evaluate the palaeogeography of Siberia 

and Baltica in detail, and the entire Paleozoic 

history of the world, in several important 

papers over the past few years. In the present 

volume, Torsvik and Cocks discuss the faunal 

relationships amongst the collage of terranes 

extending through Asia between Tarim, South 

China and India, and use colour to clearly distinguish 

each of these terranes. Of local relevance 

is the summary of Australian and New Zealand 

palaeobiogeography, largely based on the 

Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian chapters in 

the AAP Memoir 23 published in 2000 (though 

authorship of the Cambrian is incorrectly 

attributed to the editors of the PAFF compilation, 

rather than to Brock et al, 2000). 

Although not truly a peri-Gondwanan terrane (or 

more correctly, series of terranes), Kazakhstan is 

the subject of the third paper (by Leonid Popov 

and colleagues) in the Special Publication, and 

I am very happy that it was included. An 

increasing number of papers on this enigmatic 

region have been published in mainstream 

English language scientific journals in recent 

years, but many of the earlier Soviet-era works 

in Russian are very hard to come by. The Popov 

et al paper cites many of these sources and 

combines them with the latest palaeontological 

research on Cambrian and Ordovician faunas of 

the region to derive correlation charts and 

reconstructions that are very helpful in unravelling 

connections between the numerous Kazakh 

terranes and those of South China, Sibumasu 

and central Asia. Several of the diagrams in this 

paper stress the significant Ordovician faunal 

affinities between the Macquarie Arc of NSW 

and the Chu-Ili terrane of Kazakhstan. 

Other papers in the volume are mainly 

concerned with Europe and South America. 

Contributions dealing with terranes comprising 

parts of Europe include Olda Fatka and Michel 

Mergl reviewing the concept of Perunica in 

central Europe (regarded by Servais and Sintubin 

as a palaeobiogeographical province rather than 

a ‘microcontinent’), and Javier Alvaro and 

Brigitte van Vliet-Lanoe, who discuss the 

sedimentology of the Iberian and Hesperian 

platforms in north-east Spain. Robin Cocks and 

Richard Fortey describe the Lower Paleozoic 

history and faunal affinities of Avalonia, and 

David Harper collaborating with Alan Owen and 

David Brunton revisit the Celtic Province (characterised 

by brachiopods and trilobites) that 

spanned the Iapetus Ocean between Laurentia, 

Baltica and Gondwana in Ordovician times. Then 

follows a succinct article on the southern margin 

of Gondwana by Robert Pankhurst and Alan 

Vaughan that is a summary of their focus paper 

in Gondwana Research in 2008. Three papers 

dealing with South America commence with a 

description of coalified organic remains from 

Upper Silurian rocks in Bolivia (Edwards et al). 

The subsequent contribution by Juan Benedetto 

and colleagues from Argentina provides a 

comprehensive and profusely-illustrated 

overview of Cambro-Ordovician biogeography of 

terranes accreted to the Gondwana craton and 

basins on its margin. In the final paper in this set 

from South America, Diane Edwards and her 

co-workers describe several Early Devonian plant 

assemblages from Argentina. 

The Special Publication concludes with a wideranging 

paper by Lesley Cherns and James 

Wheeley that examines Early Paleozoic (Late 

Cambrian to Late Silurian) cooling events, their 

evidence and consequences, with an almost 

worldwide context (though unfortunately 

excluding Australia). An index completes the 

volume. 

This hard-bound volume maintains the high 

standard of production characteristic of the 

Geological Society Special Publication series. 

I found the majority of the papers to be useful, 

both as sources of primary data and as excellent 

reviews of past work. All are extremely welledited 

and presented, and many are copiously 

illustrated. Highly recommended, particularly at 

the discounted price and current favourable 

exchange rates. 

IAN PERCIVAL 

Geological Survey of New South Wales, 

Londonderry 

The geodynamics of the 

Aegean and Anatolia 

T Taymax, Y Yilmaz, Y Dilek (Eds) 

Geological Society of London 

Special Publication, 291 

2007 

314 pages 

ISBN: 978-1-86239-230-4 

This book comprising 12 

papers is a useful reference 

for researchers interested 

in recent geodynamics of 

Aegean and Anatolia in eastern 

Mediterranean, located in the 

Alpine–Himalayan Orogenic Belt, a collisional 

boundary between Gondwana and Laurasia. 

This area is recognised as ideal for study of 

core-complex formation, synchronous basin 

evolution and graben development, and for 

the extensional tectonics of the region, 

whose interpretation may shed light on other 

extensional-tectonic regions. Papers are 

grouped under the themes, the Aegean Sea 

and the Cyclades, the Hellenic and the Cyprus 

arc areas and strike slip faulting. Most of the 

articles were presented in 2005 at the 

International Symposium on Geodynamics of 

Eastern Mediterranean: Active Tectonics of the 

Aegean in Turkey. 

Under the theme of the Aegean Sea and the 

Cyclades, Katzir et al provide a review of the 

tectonic position and field relations of major 

42 | 

TAG March 2011

ultramafic occurrences in the Cyclades, with 

the aim of answering the question of how 

mantle-generated rocks are in-placed adjacent 

to exhumed subduction rocks. The paper by 

Mehl et al presents data from the islands of 

Inos and Andros, indicating progressive evolution 

and suggesting that the strain localisation 

depends on rheological stratification and 

compositional heterogeneity. 

Canadian researchers Pe-Piper and Piper 

document the occurrences of Miocene igneous 

rocks on Samos, as part of the Late Miocene– 

Quaternary back-arc setting of the Aegean 

Sea, demonstrating regional extension, listric 

and strike-slip faulting. Under the same 

general topic, Piper et al have interpreted 

marine seismic reflection profiles across an 

800-km traverse around Santorini, showing 

the distribution of active faults and the 

occurrence of submarine rocks. As this island 

is located at the intersection of different 

faults, local volcanism is seen to be a result 

of varying faulting patterns. 

Evidence of the latest extensional event, within 

the back-arc setting in Northern Aegean 

about a subduction zone, is made by Bonev 

and Beccaletto, who demonstrate both 

syn- and post-orogenic Tertiary extension. 

Bonev and Beccaletto provide a review of 

Oligocene-to-Present extension tectonics 

within a back-arc setting in north Aegean 

above a subduction zone. A study of block 

faulting in seismically active south-west 

Bulgaria using GPS and levelling data is made 

by Georgiev et al. 

Under the theme of Hellenic and the Cyprus 

arc areas, Karaginni and Papazachos present a 

regional earthquakes database consistent 

with strong lateral variations of the S-wave 

velocities for the crust and uppermost mantle 

in the Aegean region, confirming a relatively 

thin crust(

With the range of properties available from the 

well, true depth modelling that allows the 

realistic environmental conditions of the stratigraphic 

facies to be propagated laterally, 

between the locations of the seismic grid, into 

the model cells is now possible. However desirable 

such large models are for precision, this 

degree of physical detail cannot be utilised in 

practice, and the papers presented at the conference, 

and selected for publication by the 

Geological Society of London, describe the range 

of approaches used in developing the smaller 

simulation models that have guided the successful 

future development of hydrocarbon reservoirs. 

The availability of this publication could well 

allow future model makers to confidently assert 

that their practices and simulation results are 

adequate for reliable decision making. 

BILL McMAUGH 

Turramurra 

Madingley Rise and early 

geophysics at Cambridge 

CA Williams 

Third Millenium Publishing, London 

2009 

ISBN 978 1 90650718 3 

The author, Carol Williams, is in an ideal position 

to write this book, and the Earth Science 

community worldwide benefits from her having 

done so. She has been associated with Madingley 

Rise at Cambridge for some 40 years and she 

knows well the leading figures over this period. 

She contributes a nice watercolour 

painting of the Madingley Rise house itself. 

A history needs a point to start, and a point to 

finish. Often the latter is more difficult to set, not 

least when progress continues whilst a book is 

being written. This book takes as its concluding 

point the incorporation of the Department of 

Geophysics and Geodesy in 1980 into a larger 

Department of Earth Sciences. This end point 

makes for a neat history, from many points of 

view. 

The eight chapters of the book are contained 

between a preface by DP McKenzie, and then a 

postscript by the same author. There is a 

Bibliography, containing a selection of the most 

significant publications of geophysics over a century, 

connected to the contents of the book. 

The first chapter gives the setting of geophysics 

at Cambridge in its most general terms. It starts 

seven centuries ago and explains the development 

of the colleges, and then of the university 

itself. It was only in the 19th century that the 

University of Cambridge took its present form. 

The legacy of mathematics and science from that 

time was very rich, and led into the 20th-century 

setting for the development of geodesy. This first 

chapter also gives an erudite account of the history 

of physics. Significantly, marine science 

enters with the Challenger expedition of 

1872–1876. 

The second chapter concentrates on HF Newall 

(1857–1944), a pivotal figure. A professor of 

astronomy, in 1891 he built Madingley Rise as his 

family house, near the low hills where the 

Cambridge observatory was situated. He tirelessly 

advocated the establishment of a department of 

geodesy. He bequeathed his house to Trinity 

College, whence it later became the distinctive 

home of the Department of Geodesy and 

Geophysics. 

In Chapter 3 we meet G Lenox-Conyngham 

(1866–1956), whom Newall met in India on an 

expedition to view an eclipse. Lenox-Conyngham 

was the surveyor coming to a second career, 

having been knighted in 1919 for his service 

to the Trigonometrical Survey of India. It is 

significant that he was appointed on the basis of 

his practical experience. The view at that time 

was that Cambridge was well-endowed with 

mathematicians, and needed a field man for the 

comprehensive training of geodesists. 

In Chapter 4 a School of Geodesy is established 

at Cambridge, in 1921, largely due to Newall’s 

efforts. This development partly arises from WWI, 

and partly it reflects the need to train 

surveyors for service throughout the British 

Colonial Empire. The course consists of surveying 

instruction by Lenox-Conyngham, and lectures by 

the likes of H Lamb on seismology, H Jeffreys on 

physics of the Earth, and GI Taylor on tidal theory. 

In 1924 a pendulum house is established at the 

Madingley Rise site, the first move of 

geophysics to that site. 

After 10 years, in Chapter 5 the School of 

Geodesy expands in1931 to become a 

Department of Geodesy and Geophysics. 

EC Bullard is recruited as a research student in 

experimental physics in the Cavendish Laboratory 

under Rutherford, and sets to work with the pendulum 

apparatus. His immediate duties are to 

make gravity measurements in support of Lenox- 

Conyngham’s research interest, and his traverse 

across the African rift valley forms a second part 

of his PhD thesis. As well as making important 

improvements to gravity measurements (for 

example in the timing of the pendulums) he 

expands into other topics of geophysics. These 

expansions foreshadow much of what is to come. 

Chapter 6 picks up the story post-WWII. 

Equipment had now entered a new phase, as 

had particularly marine geophysics, with ships 

and personnel experienced from the war. Also, 

significantly, the Department of Geodesy and 

Geophysics moves to the old Newall family home 

at Madingley Rise. Bullard however leaves for different 

pastures in 1948 (to return to Madingley 

Rise, knighted, in 1955) and other names take the 

lead. SK Runcorn, for example, creates a palaeomagnetism 

group which demonstrates that 

Europe and America have different polar-wander 

curves, demanding continental drift. 

Chapter 7, covering the decade from 1956, 

describes what might be termed the golden age 

at the Madingley Rise house. Bullard assumes 

headship of the department in 1960. Milestones 

are the 1963 Vine–Matthews paper, the 1965 

Bullard–Everett–Smith fit of the continents 

around the Atlantic, and much more. The social 

cohesion of successful research groups is of 

known importance, and the significance to the 

success of this group of its own home in an 

attractive country house, with an outstanding 

leader, is clear. 

Chapter 8, for the period 1966–1980, is perhaps 

the denouement of this golden age. The flowerings 

of the subject opened up by the demonstrations 

of plate tectonics are numerous. There is 

perhaps a no more succinct summary for this 

period than the UNESCO map, given on 

p 140–141, of the ages of the ocean floors and 

continents, covering the whole Earth. JA Jacobs 

becomes head of department, following Bullard’s 

retirement in 1974. Then, in 1980 with Jacobs’ 

own retirement imminent, the department 

combines with those of mineralogy and 

petrology, and geology, to form Earth Sciences. 

Before the concluding postscript, there are biographies 

of Hill, Browne, Stoneley, Bullard, Jeffreys, 

Runcorn and Matthews. There is a list of 134 

students, and their submitted theses. 

The book describes much of the development of 

geophysics during the 20th century. Especially, 

it gives an inside account of a group of 

distinguished scientists who took a remarkable 

lead in the plate-tectonics revolution. It is 

also, to an international reader, a wonderful 

commentary on English social history over a 

century. The book is hard-cover and produced 

at a high standard. There are many photos and 

illustrations, printed at high quality. Besides being 

educational reading, its beautiful presentation 

means that, left on a coffee table, it will also be 

browsed with great interest. 

And finally, with his large field expeditions 

carrying heavy theodolites, what would Lenox- 

Conyngham have made of the extraordinary 

developments in modern geodesy Lasers, 

satellites and computers currently produce 

remarkable results for Earth’s gravity field, and 

measure geodynamic movement. Surely Lenox- 

Conyngham would, with satisfaction, see the 

present as a golden age of geodesy: one perhaps 

yet to reach its peak. 

TED LILLEY 


44 | TAG March 2011

Books for review 

Please contact the Geological Society of Australia Business 

Office (info@gsa.org.au) if you would like to review any of 

the following publications. Review copies are complimentary 

but price information is included for your interest. Australian 

prices of overseas publications are approximate. 

New publications 

Middle Palaeozoic vertebrate biogeography, 

palaeogeography and climate (IGCP Project 491) 

Qun Yang, Douglas H Erwin 

Palaeoworld V19 (special issue), Issues 1–2, March 2010, 194 

pages, $53 (softcover), $61 (hardcover) 

www.elsevier.com 

The Artist and the Scientists: 

bringing prehistory to life 

Peter Trusler, Patricia Vickers-Rich, Thomas H Rich 

Published 2010, 296 pages, $45 

www.cambridge.org 

The Olympic Dam Story: how Western Mining 

defied the odds to discover and develop the 

world’s largest mineral deposit 

David Upton 


email: davidupton3@bigpond.com 

Geology at ANU (1959–2009): 50 Years of history 

and reminiscences 

Mike Rickard 


http://epress.anu.edu.au/geology_citation.html 

Rudolph Glossop and the rise of geotechnology 

Ronald E Williams 


www.inbooks.com.au 

Re-advertised 

Frasnian (Upper Devonian) colonial disphyllid 

corals from Western Canada 

Ross McLean 

Published 2010, 189 pages, $69.95 

Earth surface processes, landforms 

and sediment deposits 

John S Bridge and Robert V Demico 

Published 2008, 741 pages, 

45.00 (A$71.80) 

www.cambridge.org 

A guide for mineral exploration through the 

regolith in the Cobar Region, Lachlan Orogen, 

New South Wales 

KG McQueen 

Published 2008, 109 pages, $15 (free download) 

http://crcleme.org.au/Pubs/cobar.html 

Seismic reflection processing with special 

reference to anisotropy 

SK Upadhyay 


Geological journeys: a traveller’s guide to 

South Africa’s rocks and landforms 

Nick Norman and Gavin Whitfield 

Published 2006, 311 pages, $34.49 

www.struik.co.za 

From the Geological Society of London 

The following books are published by the Geological Society of 

London, www.geolsoc.org.uk/bookshop but are available from 

the GSA for review, contact info@gsa.org.au 

SP337 Petrological evolution of the European 

lithospheric mantle 

M Coltori, H Downes, M Gregorie and SY O’Reilly 

Published 2010, 236 pages, ₤85 (A$127.60), 

GSA Member price: ₤51 (A$81.35) 

SP23 Weathering as a predisposing factor to slope 

movements 

D Calcaterra and M Parise 



SP329 Mesozoic and Cenozoic carbonate systems 

of the Mediterranean and the Middle East — 

stratigraphic and diagenetic reference models 

FSP van Buchem, KD Gerdes and M Esteban 



SP331 Limestone in the built environment — 

present day challenges for the preservation 

of the past 

BJ Smith M Gomez-Jeras, HA Viles and J Cassar 



SP332 Advances in interpretation of geological 

processes — refinement of multi-scale data and 

integration in numerical modelling 

MI Spalla, AM Marotta and G Gosso 



SP333 Natural stone resources for 

historical monuments 

R Prikryl and A Torok 



SP324 Thermochronological methods: from 

palaeotemperature constraints to landscape 

evolution models 

F Lisker, B Ventura & U A Glasmacher, Published 2009, 

336 pages, ₤100 (A$159.50), GSA Member price: ₤60 (A$ 95.70) 

SP313 Underground gas storage 

DJ Evans and RA Chadwick 



SP308 Geodynamic evolution of east Antarctica 

M Satish-Kumar, Y Motoyoshi, Y Osanai, Y Hiroi and K Shiraishi 


GSA Member price: ₤60 (A$ 95.70) 

(Books for review continued bottom of next page) 

TAG March 2011|45

46 | 

Calendar 

2011 

23–24 March 

Geology of Gold Course 

School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne 

Kerry Greiser:kerryh@unimelb.edu.au 

3–8 April 

European Geosciences Union General Assembly 

2011: Pan-African Orogen: geochemistry, 

petrology, structural and tectonic evolution 

http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2011/session/7163 

11, 12, 13 May 

RIU Sydney Resources Round-up 

Sofitel Wentworth Sydney Hotel, NSW 

doug@verticalevents.com.au 

31 May–1 June 

Sampling Australia 2011 

Perth, WA 

www.samplingaustralia.com.au/ 

16–17 June 

Gold Coast Resources Showcase 

Sheraton Mirage Resort & Spa Gold Coast, QLD 


27 June–8 July 

2011 International Union of Geodesy and 

Geophysics (IUGG) General Assembly 

Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre 

www.iugg2011.com 

(Books for review continued from previous page) 

SP303 Biogeochemical controls on 

palaeoceanographic environmental proxies 

WEN Austin and RH James 



SP293 Metasomatism in Oceanic and 

continental lithospheric mantle 

M Coltorti and M Gregoire 

Published 2008, 368 pages, ₤25 (A$39.90) 

SP276 Economic and palaeoceanographic 

significance of contourite deposits 

AR Viana and M Rebesco 


SP244 Submarine slope systems: 

processes and products 

DM Hodgson and SS Flint 



TAG March 2011 

3–8 July 

17th International Congress on the 

Carboniferous and Permian (ICCP 2011) 

University of Western Australia, Perth 

www.iccp2011.org/ 

20–21 July 

Australian Uranium Conference 

Esplanade Hotel Freemantle, WA 


23–30 July 

XVIII International Botanical Congress 

(IBC2011) 

Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre 

www.ibc2011.com 

6–7 September 

RIU Good Oil Conference 

Esplanade Hotel, Freemantle, WA 

Email: doug@verticalevents.com.au 

28–29 September 

RIU Melbourne Resources Round-up 

Sofitel Melbourne on Collins, VIC 


26, 27, 28 October 

Mining 2011 Resources Convention 

Brisbane, QLD 


SP 338 The evolving continents, 

understanding processes of continental growth 

TM Kusky, M–G Zhai and W Xiao 



SP340 Sedimentary basin tectonics from the 

Black Sea and Caucasus to the Arabian 

Platform 

M Sosson, N Kaymakci, RA Stephenson, F Bergerat and 

V Starostenko 



SP341 Evolution of the Levant Margin 

and Western Arabia Platform 

C Hombery and M Bachmann 

Published 2010, 326 pages, A$190, GSA Member price: A$114 

SP434 Dinosaurs and other extinct saurians: 

a historical perspective 

RTJ Moody, E Buffetaut, D Naish and DM Martill 


SP223 Permo–Carboniferous magmatism and 

rifting in Europe 

M Wilson, ER Neumann, GR Davies, MJ Timmerman, M 

Heeremans and BT Larsen 

Published 2004, 487 pages, ₤15 (A$23.90)

Geological Society of Australia Inc. Office Bearers 2010/2012 

MEMBERS OF COUNCIL 

AND EXECUTIVE 

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Chair: Bradley Opdyke 


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www.cgg.gsa.org.au 

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(EEHSG) 

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(SGGMP) 

www.gsa.org.au/specialgroups/sggmp.html 

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Group (SGPG) 

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www.es.mq.edu.au/geology/volcan/ 

hmpg.htm 

Chair: Rick Squire 


Secretary: Karin Orth 

University of Tasmania 

TAG March 2011 | 47

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48 | TAG March 2011 Background Information 

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