Thursday 6th August
Annual General Meeting
6:30 pm at Hadleys Hotel Murray Street
Purchase drinks at the bar from 6 PM onwards. Meeting will be followed by talk to be given by Peter McGoldrick on Tasmania’s oldest fossil Horodyskia williamsi. More details under "events" section of this website!
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Nomination forms for committee positions are on the back page of our current newsletter.
GSA Tas Division event
August onwards
GSA Tas Division COVID-19 response
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Given the lack of COVID19 cases in Tasmania we are happy to go ahead with a face to face AGM and meeting in August. Finally out of the house!
Please respect social distancing and other instructions to keep us all safe.
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All future events will be subject to change based on current regulations.
GSA Tas Division
August 2020
Student Prizes
Congratulations to student awardees. Maxwell Banks Prize for best second year student in the Discipline of Earth Sciences at the University of Tasmania for 2019 was awarded to Dina Chu!
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Endowment Fund recipient for 2020 Honours is Olivia Wilson!
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Carey Prize for the best Honours thesis in Earth Sciences at the University of Tasmania for 2019 has been awarded to Acacia Clark for her thesis entitled ‘Transitions of Eruptive Style: Silicic Submarine Volcanism during the 2012 Eruption of Havre Volcano, Kermadec Arc New Zealand
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We hope to present the awards to these students at the AGM.
GSA Tas Division
AESC 2021
The AESC 2021 Call for Sessions is now
closed.
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Don’t leave home for a conference for a
change!
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Entice your colleagues to visit.
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Help us show off our Island State
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Think about the abstract you want to submit
Keep an eye out for the call for abstracts!
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New GSA-Tas Banner!
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Our striking new banner was displayed for the first time at the AGM. It featured in our
photographs and was designed by IJ von Lichtan.
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Here she tells us about her design:
The brief with which I was provided for the new banner was to have something iconically
Tasmanian, to feature some geology, and to aim the banner at a younger audience. It also needed room in which to place the GSA logo.
I chose the profile of Cradle Mountain very early in the design stage, thinking that the profile is well known locally, interstate and overseas. It is also one of probably two ranges in Tasmania that has such a well-known profile, the other being
Wineglass Bay.
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Having set the profile, then came the matter of deciding on what would be below Cradle Mountain graphically. I turned to the geological report of the area to determine the sequence - folded basement rocks, Permian sediments with fossiliferous layers, and Triassic sandstones, all intruded by Jurassic dolerite.
The banner needed to be bold and appeal to a younger audience, so I chose a more cartoon/drawn style for the format with bright colours. The geology would be representational and not true to scale, otherwise the fossils I drew would be big as a house in reality instead of just a few centimetres across! After the initial sketches were approved, the design was rendered in Adobe Illustrator -a vector graphics package- making sure the lines were not perfectly straight and the shading graded.
After a few iterations, mostly with changes to the logo position, the banner was approved by the committee.
IJ von Lichtan
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Fossils of Tasmania publication
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A special working group has been assembled (additional to the geotourism subcommittee) to facilitate the development of a publication to educate the community on the common fossils of Tasmania. The group will meet again in September (date TBA). Please be in touch with Ralph.Bottrill@stategrowth.tas.gov.au if you would like to be involved.
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Furneaux Geotrail
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Tasmania’s newest Geotourism venture, the Furneaux Geotrail was officially opened by the Honourable Michael Ferguson, Minister for Science and Technology last week. This community based project was led by Mrs Dale Williams (first person to right of sign below), a local resident of Flinders Island who coordinated a diverse group of stake holders including representatives from the Flinders Council, Tasmania Parks and Wildlife and the Furneaux Museum. Technical information was provided by State Growth through Mineral Resources Tasmania with graphic design and web development by Nature Tourism Services. The project was supported by the Tasmanian State Government and the Tasmania Community Fund.
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The Furneaux Geotrail consists of ten popular easy access tourists sites throughout Flinders Island (see map below) that display aspects of the geological history of the region. At each site there is an interpretive panel with a QR code via which additional information can be obtained from the web app (see http://furneauxgeotrail.flinders.tas.gov.au/ ). The Furneaux Museum forms the educational hub of the Geotrail and features excellent displays of the natural and local history of the island.
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The recent involvement in the Furneaux Geotrail and in other Geotourism projects, including the West Coast Geotrail, represents a relatively new and increasing activity for Mineral Resources Tasmania delivering nontechnical educational geology based products for the general public, student and tourist.
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