Geophysics survey data has been reported to the NSW government and released under the requirements of the NSW Mining Act 1992. Contained within this vector file is the location of surveys and acquisition parameters. These surveys use uncommon techniques.

Locations of geotechnical reports, plans and heritage documents compiled from NSW Public Works records. These reports are considered historic records.

Map blocks and map units are based on a system originally devised by the British Ordinance Survey. Each 1:1 million scale map sheet is subdivided into 3456 graticular map blocks, each measuring 5’ of latitude by 5’ of longitude. These map blocks are further subdivided into 25 1’ by 1’ map units. A map unit is approximately 3 square kilometres in size. Map blocks and map units are used in New South Wales to define certain types of titles. Petroleum exploration titles (PELs) are applied for and granted as a series of map blocks (Map sheet, block number), and mineral exploration titles, which tend to be smaller in size, are defined as a list of map units.

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.

Pseudocolour image of the ratio between uranium and thorium within the upper 20 centimetres of the ground. This image was generated using normalised input grids to avoid ‘divide by zero’ errors. Cooler colours indicate lower abundances of uranium relative to thorium and warmer colours represent the opposite. Variations in U/Th ratio are caused varied mineral compositions in host rocks and soils. This statewide image was generated by merging many individual airborne radiometric surveys.

Pseudocolour image of the concentration of thorium in parts per million within in the upper 20 centimetres of the ground. Cooler colours indicate lower abundances of thorium and warmer colours represent higher abundances. Variations in thorium values are caused varied mineral compositions in host rocks and soils. This statewide image was generated by merging many individual airborne radiometric surveys.

The petrophysics database contains petrophysical (rock physical properties) data managed and acquired by the Geological Survey of NSW (GSNSW). Petrophysical properties recorded are: magnetic susceptibility (volume normalised); principal axes and degree of anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility; natural remanent magnetisation (NRM) intensity and direction; remanent magnetisation component directions; Koenigsberger (Q) ratio; saturated density; dry density; grain density; porosity. Vector and tensor magnetic properties (remanence and AMS) are oriented to in-situ (geographic) and fold-corrected (stratigraphic) coordinates where sample and bedding orientation are known.

Depth contours derived from the NSW Basement Elevation Model.

In 2016, the Geological Survey of NSW (GSNSW) published a state-wide depth to basement 3D model (Robinson 2016, 2017). Since then, new geological and geophysical data have been released and used for the construction of basin-scale 3D geological models for the southern Thomson Orogen and the Sydney, Gunnedah and Bowen basins (Davidson 2019; Oliveira and Davidson 2019; Oliveira et al. 2019). The basement topography under these regions was modelled using constraints from drillholes, seismic, Seamless Geology, magnetics and gravity data. The results have now been incorporated into the updated Statewide 3D Basement Elevation Model reported herein.

The NSW Seamless Geology Project is a five-year initiative of the Geological Survey of New South Wales which commenced in late 2013 and aims to provide a statewide compilation of the best available digital geological mapping data in an internally consistent format. The overarching aims of the NSW Seamless Geology Project were to: (i) compile the different original scales, formats and rock unit naming conventions into a consistent, statewide format; (ii) edge-match the geology across existing map sheets; and (iii) interpret the basement geology under cover. The resulting geodatabase comprises a series of layers which include: (i) solid basement geology; (ii) cover rocks (defined as undeformed and unmetamorphosed); (iii) Mesozoic igneous rocks; and (iv) Cenozoic sedimentary and igneous rocks. Due to the size of the project, the work was divided into UTM zones, starting in the east with Zone 56, then moving west to Zone 54, and finishing with Zone 55. The western half of Zone 55 was completed in 2018, after which the results were merged with the previously completed Zones to produce version 1 of the NSW Seamless Geology dataset. Completion of this stage saw the end of phase 1 of the Seamless Geology Project, but it is intended that the Seamless Geology dataset will be continually updated and refined as new digital geological mapping data becomes available. Version 2 is the 2nd major update to the NSW Seamless Geology and was released in May 2020. This release includes: final data from the East Riverina Mapping Project; updates to the geology of several areas in the Lachlan Orogen; approximately 11,000 new structure points in the Lachlan Orogen and Curnamona Province; detailed revision of the Cenozoic Igneous Province; detailed mapping of the Newcastle Coal Measures; and extensive upgrades to the RockUnit polygon attribute table. The geology of Lord Howe Island is also included for the first time. A single layer version of the Seamless Geology dataset has been created to give a view of the New South Wales surface geology only by removing all the data from overlapped feature classes of the full NSW Seamless Geology dataset and merging the remaining data into a single feature class. As well as giving a view of the surface geology that is faster to display than the full NSW Seamless Geology dataset, the single layer NSW Seamless Geology dataset is also useful for performing statewide queries that would otherwise have to be performed multiple times on the full multi-layered New South Wales Seamless Geology dataset. Version 2.1 is the 3rd major update to the NSW Seamless Geology and was released in May 2021. This release includes: the NSW Metamorphic dataset; an upgrade of the geology of the Cenozoic Murray Basin (southwest New South Wales); an upgrade of the geology of the Sydney Basin and Mesozoic intrusions of the Illawarra region; changes to the boundaries of several depo-centres of the Darling Basin; over 50,000 trendlines and dykes were added to the Curnamona Province data in the Broken Hill area; the geology of Kinchega National Park, near Menindee, has been reinterpreted and updated using ADS imagery and radiometric data; and updates were made to the stratigraphy and nomenclature of the Fifield Suite (Lachlan Orogen). This release also features many new additions to the RockUnit attribute table, including an "Ultramafic" field, and new or updated magmatic fertility attributes (Lachlan Orogen only). NOTE: A substantial amount of overlay, erase and intersect geoprocessing of the original multi-layered Seamless Geology was undertaken to produce the single layer surface NSW Seamless Geology dataset. Due to small tolerance differences between different layers in the Seamless Geology dataset, this has, in some places, created small “sliver” polygons between boundaries common to more than one layer of the original multi-layered NSW Seamless Geology. This is a known issue with the current single layer Seamless Geology dataset and while some attempt has been made to resolve these issues, a number of small “sliver” polygons remain. Users are cautioned to be aware of this problem when using this dataset at high zoom levels (ie. under 1:1,000 scale) and to refer to the full Seamless Geology dataset for clarification.