To be eligible to receive Opportunity Fund support the host institution must be an AuScope member, but don't let this stop you from submitting an application.  We welcome new membership from universities, government organisations and other research groups and this can be negotiated in the event of a successful opportunity fund proposal.

Proposals to the Opportunity Fund are assessed by the AuScope Science Advisory Panel against the AuScope Evaluation Criteria:

• Builds or maintains National Research Infrastructure (equipment, data or analytics but not research activity) relevant to the Downward Looking Telescope and in alignment with the AuScope Strategic Plan.

• Has a demonstrable national benefit

• Will promote innovation or translation across academia, government or industry

• Has broad research community support and a definable user-base

• Potential impact relevant to AuScope priority areas for example coastal monitoring, critical mineral exploration, Antarctic monitoring, environment & climate, geohazard monitoring, FAIR data or outreach.

Opportunity Fund projects typically have 1-2 year contracts, which currently must end by June 2028.

The Opportunity Fund proposal submission form is available here.  Submissions can be made at any time but will be assessed annually with each round closing at the end of May. Select Opportunity Fund as the application type.

AuScope staff can advise on the eligibility of proposals and provide clarity about what information we require but in the interests of equity we can not help you develop your proposals.  Please don't hesitate to get in touch with us if you have any questions.  We want to make the application process as easy as possible.

The Opportunity Fund is a competitive, merit based funding program intended to support investment in research infrastructure projects that establish pilot programs to determine feasibility for larger scale future investment, or provide critical linking infrastructure that facilitates new capacity or access to existing geoscience infrastructures. 

The Heat Flow Data Pilot Project is a two-year long program led by the University of Melbourne to obtain accurate and precise vertical heat flow profiles and ancillary data from selected boreholes drilled during the MinEx CRC-led National Drilling Initiative (NDI). The team, led by Dr Graeme Beardsmore will use instrumentation from the AuScope Subsurface Observatory and other sources.

This project will take advantage of the unique access to the shallow crust provided by the NDI and make available a long-term national heat flow dataset relevant to groundwater flow monitoring. It will potentially also lead to the discovery of geothermal energy resources and certain types of ore systems. Specifically, it will produce precise basal heat flow data, land surface temperature history; thermal conductivity structure and will detect and monitor groundwater flow.

The National Argon Map (NAM) Pilot Project, starting in January 2020, will fund access to the infrastructure of the National Argon Network to allow the measurement of 320 samples, which translates to baseline support for the existing infrastructure investment in the national argon network, valued in excess of >~$10M.

The aim of this project is to demonstrate the feasibility and scalability of a project designed to be completed over three years in the next phase of AuScope or in collaboration with the MinEX CRC. AuScope’s investment will likely encourage matching in-kind contributions in terms of commitments, with wide support amongst the community, including MinEx, surveys and academia.

The NAM Pilot Project will begin to build a FAIR national Ar/Ar dataset that will provide constraints on the medium-high temperature thermal history of the Australian continent. Combined with existing national low temperature thermochronology datasets (eg fission track), this will provide Australian researchers with unique insights into the complete thermal evolution of the continent and its tectonic architecture and may lead to discoveries relevant to sustainable basin management and the discovery of energy and mineral resource systems.

This project is led by Dr Marnie Forster at Australian National University and overseen by an independent advisory panel is led by Dr Geoff Fraser of Geoscience Australia. It is being developed in collaboration with the National Argon Network, involving laboratories at Australian National University, Curtin University, Melbourne University and the University of Queensland.

This project aims to build on AuScope’s Virtual Geophysical Laboratory (VGL) and make important national-scale and space-enabled remote sensing data useful (by FAIR Principles) for researchers.

Data types include gravity (GRACE), imaging (InSAR) and positioning (GNSS), which allow researchers to explore questions related to the distribution and flow of mass within the Earth (i.e. groundwater storage, glacial movement and sea level rise), as well as movement of Earth’s surface (i.e. natural hazards).

In this one year-length project running across 2021, Dr Carsten Friedrich from CSIRO’s Data61, Prof Paul Tregoning from the Australian National University and Nicholas Brown from Geoscience Australia.

This project will generate information on the Critical Zone (CZ) architecture using two shallow geophysical methods: Electric Resistivity Tomography (ERT) and Seismic Refraction (SR) at five core CZO sites across Australia. At each, we will determine (i) Depth to bedrock, (ii) Water table depth, (iii) Sedimentologic layering, and (iv) Characteristics of the weathering profile.

This will inform: (a) Decisions about best sites and depths to install expensive, permanent infrastructure to observe and test groundwater and vadose zone processes; (b) Design of cross-site experiments and analyses, including those exploring the controls on properties (i) – (iv).

This two-year project will be led by Dr Matthias Leopold from The University of Western Australia.

This Geophysical Research Infrastructure for Antarctica (GRIT) project involves procurement of dedicated Antarctic geophysical instrumentation. Antarctic Geophysics investment is foreshadowed in the AuScope 5-Year Investment Plan.

The instrumentation should ultimately consist of 15 – 20 sets of magnetotelluric (MT), GPS and seismic instruments with all necessary components for deployment in snow, ice or bedrock (GPS). The present request builds on recent ARC funding of 10 GPS and 14 – 16 seismic instruments to purchase 10 MT instruments as an initial investment. This instrumentation will be hardened for Antarctic conditions and suitable for flexible and long-term deployments.

This two-year project will be led by Dr Kate Selway from Macquarie University, and Prof Matt King and Prof Anya Reading from The University of Tasmania.

AuScope’s National Virtual Core Library (NVCL) infrastructure program is based on six Hylogger™3 instruments that are embedded as key analytical instruments in the drill core libraries of six Australian State and Territory Geological Surveys. The HyLogger™3 instruments are now over 10 years old and represent a significant failure risk for the NVCL.

This project involves the procurement of three next generation HyLogger™4s, which will be released by Corescan Pty Ltd in FY21, ensuring the ongoing success of the NVCL and keeping Australia at the forefront of delivering hyperspectral drill core analytical data to the world.

It will span one year and be led by Dr Carsten Laukamp from CSIRO Mineral Resources.

This project involves procurement of a Metal Isotope Facility with ATONA System (MIFAS) analytical facility that will provide novel analytical capabilities for metal isotope geochemistry and geochronology, thus relevant to the ‘Downward-Looking Telescope’ and critical mineral exploration, including: Analysis of small-size samples (nanograms to sub-nanogram levels of metals); Extreme dynamic range for isotope signal intensities (from mV to 100s of Volts); Significant (up to 10x) reduction in analytical time per sample due to high signals; Remote access to MIFAS and training sessions for external user.

It will comprise (i) an existing multi-collector TIMS IsotopX mass spectrometer, which will be equipped with (ii) a new signal amplification technology or the ATONA™ system developed by IsotopX.

This one-year project will be led by Dr Juraj Farkas from The University of Adelaide.

In this project, AuScope is supporting national project engagement and open data delivery of the Mobile Petrophysical Laboratory (MPL) — a containerised a petrophysical logging system that provides government, academic and industry users with a stable and reliable platform to measure co-located petrophysical properties on core.

Specifically, this will be achieved via two project modules; an open and free online data delivery system (preferably part of existing AuScope portal infrastructure), and community engagement which will provide workshops nationally on the technical, logistical and application aspects of the lab.

This two-year project will be led by Shane Mulè from CSIRO and Dr David Belton from The University of Melbourne.

The Marine Heat Flow measuring system comprises of autonomous outrigger thermal probes that can be mounted on a solid shaft or core barrel.  Deployment capability is available on Australia’s Marine National Facility vessel, RV Investigator, and will be available on the Australian-Antarctic Division’s new icebreaker, RV Nuyina.

 A marine temperature logger is mounted on a gravity/piston corer, deployed from a ship, which allows for measurement of temperature gradients in seafloor sediment.  Thermal conductivity will be determined with shipboard needle-probe thermal conductivity measurements on co-located core material.  From the temperature gradient and thermal conductivity, the geothermal heat flow can be inferred.

This infrastructure facility will provide deployed/telemetered and portable instruments to investigate glaciers and adjacent areas (including ice sheets, ice streams and ice shelves). In recent years, several collaborative research initiatives centred at UTAS(ACEAS, AAPP) and Monash (SAEF) have increased Australia’s capacity for Antarctic glaciology and glacier geophysics research, and expertise exists across these centres to deploy such instrumentation and interpret the resulting data.Hence, an opportunity exists to establish collaborative infrastructure that could potentially transform Australia’s glacier data collection capability. This will boost research into glacier system processes and better constrain boundary conditions for ice sheet modelling.

The development of novel in situ β-decay dating methods (Rb-Sr, Lu-Hf, Re-Os) is destined to revolutionize geochronology. A vast range of minerals that are cogenetic with critical mineral ores, can now be dated directly from rock samples with minimal sample preparation. This opportunity is enabled by laser-ablation targeting and provides robust dates at unprecedented speed, as required for mineral exploration programs. This proposal will capitalize on the opportunity to translate this new development to exploration programs by increasing instrument capacity. We propose a dedicated laser system to be used as a national facility for critical minerals research.

This project will demonstrate the value of the combined CSIRO and UoA noble gas analysis facilities ($9M invested to date) to support research in water security and service growing water needs for minerals, agriculture, and energy sectors. It will aid in the collection of groundwater samples, analysis of stable and radioactive noble gas (SNG and RNG) concentrations from two proof-of-concept areas in the Beetaloo Sub-Basin (NT) and the K’gari World-Heritage sand island (QLD), including sampling and purification with standard 20L gas bottles, and add to AuScope’s capability by working to develop the AusGeochem database for hydrological isotope data.