Join a behind the scenes tour of Geoscience Australia

2 August 2016

Geoscience Australia building

Geoscience Australia will be offering three exclusive behind-the-scenes tours of its building and collections during National Science Week. Join one of three unique behind-the-scenes tours to discover our laboratories and rock-dating SHRIMP, the Earthquake Alert Centre or the Gem, Mineral and Fossil collection.

The tours will be offered at various times between Monday 15 and Thursday 18 August. Numbers are limited, with bookings essential via Eventbrite.

Visit the Earthquake Alert Centre where Geoscience Australia seismologists provide a 24/7 earthquake monitoring and alerting service to monitor the seismic signals from earthquakes across Australia.This information helps emergency services to respond rapidly and effectively to earthquake events, and helps provide warnings as part of the Joint Australian Tsunami Warning Centre. This work is also helping to build understanding of Australia's susceptibility to earthquakes and in turn inform safer building codes.

Also back by popular demand is the tour of Geoscience Australia's gem, mineral and fossil collection. Geoscience Australia is proud custodian of this world class collection of amazing mineral specimens, including samples from the renowned Australian mineral collector Albert Chapman; as well as many examples of rare minerals that can no longer be collected.

Explore Geoscience Australia's specialist geoscience laboratories, and learn about the microfossils used by scientists to explore for petroleum and interpret ancient environments. Uncover the mysteries of the Sensitive High-Resolution Ion Microprobe (SHRIMP) laboratory. Geoscience Australia's rock-dating 'time machine' uses radiometric geochronology techniques to measure the age of rocks based on the radioactive decay of the mineral elements found within the rocks.

Further details and book a tour.