Geoscience Australia is an agency of the

Australian Government The Australian Government, also known as the Commonwealth Government, is the national government of Australia, a federal parliamentary constitutional monarchy. Like other Westminster-style systems of government, the Australian Government ...

. It carries out geoscientific research. The agency is the government's technical adviser on all aspects of geoscience, and custodian of the geographic and geological data and knowledge of the nation. On a

user pays User pays, or beneficiary pays, is a pricing approach based on the idea that the most efficient allocation of resources occurs when consumers pay the full cost of the goods that they consume. In public finance it stands in opposition to another pr ...

basis it produces geospatial products such as

topographic maps In modern mapping, a topographic map or topographic sheet is a type of map characterized by large- scale detail and quantitative representation of relief features, usually using contour lines (connecting points of equal elevation), but histori ...

and satellite imagery. It is also a major contributor to the Australian Government's free,

open data Open data is data that is openly accessible, exploitable, editable and shared by anyone for any purpose. Open data is licensed under an open license. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "open(-source)" movement ...

collections such as data.gov.au.

Strategic priorities

The agency has six strategic priority areas: # building Australia's resource wealth in order to maximise benefits from Australia's minerals and energy resources, now and into the future; # ensuring Australia's community safety so that Australian communities are more resilient to natural hazards; # securing Australia's water resources in order to optimise and sustain the use of Australia's water resources; # managing Australia's marine jurisdictions in order to maximise benefits from the sustainable use of Australia's marine jurisdiction; # providing fundamental geographic information in order to understand the location and timing of processes, activities and changes across Australia to inform decision-making for both natural and built environments; and # maintaining geoscience knowledge and capability in order to maintain an enduring and accessible knowledge base and capability to enable evidence-based policy and decision-making by government, industry and the community.

History

Geoscience Australia came into being in 2001 when the Australian Surveying and Land Information Group (AUSLIG) merged with the Australian Geological Survey Organisation (AGSO). Its history dates back almost to Federation in 1901 when it was decided to set aside land for the national capital. This decision led to the establishment of the Australian Survey Office in 1910, when surveying began for the Australian Capital Territory. AUSLIG's main function was to provide national geographic information. It was formed in 1987, when the Australian Survey Office joined with the Division of National Mapping, which was formed in 1947. Another important component of AUSLIG was the provision of satellite imagery to industry and government, started by the Australian Landsat Station in 1979, renamed the Australian Centre for Remote Sensing (ACRES) in 1986. AGSO's predecessor organisation the Bureau of Mineral Resources, Geology and Geophysics (BMR) was established in 1946; with the name changing to AGSO in 1992. The BMR was a

geological survey A geological survey is the systematic investigation of the geology beneath a given piece of ground for the purpose of creating a geological map or model. Geological surveying employs techniques from the traditional walk-over survey, studying outc ...

with the main objective was the systematic geological and geophysical mapping of the continent as the basis for informed

mineral exploration Mining in the engineering discipline is the extraction of minerals from underneath, open pit, above or on the ground. Mining engineering is associated with many other disciplines, such as mineral processing, exploration, excavation, geology, and ...

. Geoscience Australia's activities have expanded and today it has responsibility for meeting the Australian Government's geoscience requirements. This role takes the Agency well beyond its historic focus on resource development and topographic mapping to topics as diverse as natural hazards such as tsunami and earthquakes, environmental issues, including the

impacts of climate change The effects of climate change impact the physical environment, ecosystems and human societies. The environmental effects of climate change are broad and far-reaching. They affect the water cycle, oceans, sea and land ice (glaciers), sea leve ...

, groundwater research, marine and coastal research,

carbon capture and storage Carbon capture and storage (CCS) or carbon capture and sequestration is the process of capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) before it enters the atmosphere, transporting it, and storing it (carbon sequestration) for centuries or millennia. Usually th ...

and vegetation monitoring as well as Earth observations from space. Geoscience Australia's remit also extends beyond the Australian landmass to Australia's vast marine jurisdiction.

Summary of predecessor agencies

Facilities

It has a free place name search and its earthquake monitoring services can be freely accessed. The Library is the premier geoscience library in Australia providing services to geoscience organisations, universities, research centres, the

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...

and petroleum industries and the public.

Economic Demonstrated Resources

Geoscience Australia defines ''Economic Demonstrated Resources'' (EDR) as For EDR, tonnages and grades are computed from samples of the resource taken from points spaced to provide assured resource continuity.

References

External links

Geoscience Australia home page

Geoscience Australia in Google Cultural Institute

As the cocky flies
distance calculator *

International Map of the World The International Map of the World or IMW (also called the Millionth Map of the World, after its scale of 1:1 000 000) was a project to create a complete map of the world according to internationally agreed standards. It was first proposed by th ...

XNATMAP's home page preserving NATMAP's (The Division of National Mapping) history and maintaining contact with the people who were part of that history
{{Authority control Commonwealth Government agencies of Australia Geography of Australia Australia Geological surveys of Australia National mapping agencies Earth sciences organizations