The NSW Government has ruled out considering a significant proportion of the state’s coal regions for proactive release under the Strategic Release Framework for Coal and Petroleum Exploration. In these mapped areas, new coal exploration can continue to occur directly adjacent to an existing coal title, if an exploration licence applicant meets approval requirements. If a coal exploration licence is granted, an operator is not permitted to access the land unless they have an access arrangement with the landholder. The grant of a coal exploration licence is not a guarantee of mining. An operator would still need to obtain development consent under the planning framework.

Depth to the Mohorovičić discontinuity (Moho) interpreted and modelled by Geognostics with support from government and industry. The Moho surface is the boundary between the Earth's crust and the upper mantle. The depth to moho is a representation of the thickness of the Earth's Crust. This moho surface is derived from seismic, gravity and other geophysical datasets.

This layer shows the boundary of the AusLAMP NSW survey and the station locations. Data were acquired by a collaboration between GSNSW and Geoscience Australia. Data were used to create a 3D resistivity model of the crust from 10 km depth to 200 km depth.

Please view Matthews and Sheldon (2024) for full description and instructions: Contact Sam at samuel.matthews@regional.nsw.gov.au if you have any difficulty accessing the paper.

This layer shows a depth slice from a 3D resistivity model of the crust derived from an inversion of the AusLAMP NSW long period MT data.

Areas restricted from mining or exploration. Reserves emplaced by external agencies or authorities. If a lease application covers part or all of one of these areas, it must be referred to and approved by the agency which created the restriction.

Basement terrane age interpreted by Geognostics with support from government, academia and industry. Geological age of Basement terrane age is interpreted from a combination of geological and geophysical datasets. Basement terrane age is important in a Geothermal studies as older terranes have lower heat potential.

Geothermal gradient model (2023) created by Geognostics with support from government and industry. The geothermal gradient describes how temperature increases with depth inside the Earth. It is expressed in degrees Celsius per kilometre (°C/km). The linear geothermal gradients are from the top of SEEBASE to the surface. These were calculated using the combined heat-flow contribution of multiple crustal heat sources including upper mantle, radiogenic upper crust, and sediment thickness. The highest calculated geothermal gradients are generally related to areas interpreted to be underlain by granitic intrusions in the basement. The composition and heat production characteristics of the granites are largely unconstrained by analyses

Marine protected areas are parts of the NSW marine estate managed to conserve marine biodiversity and support marine science, recreation and education. The NSW system of marine protected areas includes: marine parks – six multiple use marine parks cover around one third (approximately 345,000 hectares) of the NSW marine estate aquatic reserves – 12 aquatic reserves cover around 2,000 hectares of the NSW marine estate national parks and nature reserves – include around 20,000 hectares of estuarine and oceanic habitats.

This vector contains the boundary and flight lines of Infill Area D. Infill Area D is part of the MinEx Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) Cobar Airborne Electromagnetic (AEM) survey. This survey was a collaboration between the Geological Survey of NSW (GSNSW) and Geoscience Australia. Infill D was funded by Legacy Minerals Pty. Ltd. Regional lines were funded by GSNSW.