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Continental Geophysics

Airborne geophysical survey aircraft

Project description

Geoscience Australia's Continental Geophysics project is an active concentration of specialists engaged in the acquisition, processing, archiving, enhancement, presentation and interpretation in the fields of airborne geophysics and gravity. They also are involved in the development of new computational methods which can be applied to geophysical data. The project's products and services are used by:

  • other projects in Geoscience Australia engaged in studies of mineral systems, geological mapping, mineral province studies, sedimentary basin studies and definition of the geoid as well as land use and environmental projects
  • exploration companies
  • organisations involved in the identification of areas at risk of salinity and its management
  • agricultural and environmental organisations
  • organisations developing infrastructure projects
  • educational and research institutions
  • other government departments

Geoscience Australia is the custodian of the most comprehensive publicly available Australian airborne magnetic, gamma-ray, elevation model and electromagnetic database and gravity database. The airborne geophysics database contains approximately 19 million line kilometres of data which would cost approximately $114 million to acquire at current prices. The gravity database contains more than 1.4 million stations gathered during more than 1,500 surveys. All the products and research results from the Continential Geophysics project are publicly available for use by other government agencies, industry and research and educational institutions. Data from the project also is available for inter-governmental and private sector cooperative acquisition, interpretation, research and training projects.

Project outcome

  • Enhanced exploration strategies and promotion of mineral exploration opportunities in Australia
  • Improved environmental management
  • Key technological developments in the fields of geophysical inversion and computational geophysics

Project outputs - 2007/2008

  1. Updated datasets from the national geophysical databases
  2. New geophysical datasets as required by clients, including airborne electromagnetics, aeromagnetics, ground gravity, and airborne radiometrics
  3. Updated values at selected gravity base station sites
  4. Develop and implement methodology for generating continental-scale geophysical datasets, grids and maps
  5. Management of the NGA geophysical data acquisition project
  6. Reports on the development and application of computational methods for 3D geological mapping and geophysical processing (including inversion)
  7. Reports on the development of continental-scale 3D rock property and 3D rock type models for Australia

Databases

  • Australian National Gravity Database
  • Airborne Surveys Database - this database of specifications of Australian and State Government airborne geophysical surveys shows a window open to query, another showing results of any query and a third showing the survey boundaries on a map of Australia.
  • Geophysical Archive Data Delivery System (GADDS) - this web-based application delivers data from the airborne geophysics and gravity databases and allows customers to select a specific area of interest and have that data delivered free online within a short time frame.
  • Magnetic Anomaly Grid Database of Australia (MAGDA) - this database, which underpins the production of the Magnetic Anomaly Map of Australia, contains matched total magnetic intensity grid data for mostly publicly available airborne surveys over the Australian continent.

Reports

Standards

Informal standards

Reference and discussion papers

Data (digital downloads)

Maps