CEO's Update
My office has been shaking, and not just because my boys keep slamming doors. Pictured: the trace from the RasberryShake seismometer under my stairs in St Kilda.
Earthquakes! Epidemiology has been in the limelight recently, so it was nice to have many in Australia turn their attention to geology briefly last week. And as you can see, AuScope seismologists and instruments were critical to the national effort to understand and locate this somewhat unique event in recent and recorded history.
But that is certainly not all that has been happening. The 2021 National Research Infrastructure Roadmap process continues to be developed by the Expert Working Group, and I want to thank you all again for the strong engagement that our community has had in this process. The next opportunity to have input will most likely be in a month when the first exposure draft of the roadmap is released. Fear not, we will let you all know as soon as the draft is released.
While we are talking about engagement, thank you for the very strong response to the AuScope User Satisfaction Survey. We will publish the results of the survey on the AuScope website in October.
I would also like to draw your attention to the exciting new collaboration between the EarthByte group and BHP, titled STELLAR (Spatio TemporaL Exploration for Resources). This is an outstanding example of application of NCRIS enabled infrastructure, in this case the G-Plates suite of software, to support research collaboration between industry and academic partners. Congratulations to all involved for getting this project off the ground.
In Program news there has also been a lot of activity. AuScope’s 2021 Opportunity Fund has resulted in the initiation of eight new Pilot Projects that cover geophysical instrument calibration, marine heat flow measurement, improved isotopic analysis capability from both Sensitive High Ion Microprobe (SHRIMP) and Atom Trap Trace Analysis (ATTA) instruments, AuScope Geochemistry Network (AGN) expansion, International Continental Drilling Program membership, and development of a GPlates educational app and a new inference framework. We will bring you more details of these pilots as they develop over the coming months.
The SHRIMP replacement project at Curtin University is progressing well with the new CAMECA 1300HR3 large geometry ion microprobe being delivered in July. The new space in which it will be located is currently being prepared for installation and commissioning.
Speaking of new things, look out for the upcoming release of the AusGeochem platform, the new webinars on the AGN pages and the National Virtual Core Library web refresh. And of course, we look forward to seeing many of you at the inaugural AuScope Research Conference 2021 during Earth Science Week on the 12th and 13th of October.
Until then, keep on shakin’, Tim