Many airborne surveys have been acquired by the NSW government through the NSW Exploration, Discovery 2000 and New Frontiers Initiative funding. Others have been acquired jointly with Geoscience Australia (formerly AGSO). Contained within this vector file are details on each of the surveys and some acquisition parameters, which will help locate survey data stored digitally.

Represent areas where the Department has declared reserves over which titles cannot be granted, or can only be granted provided that special conditions are met. The layer outlines these areas, and the restrictions which apply to each of them.

This data set is modified from the Australian Geological Provinces Database (Geoscience Australia) and contains descriptions and spatial extents of the fundamental geological elements of NSW. Province types include sedimentary basins, tectonic provinces such as cratons and orogens, igneous provinces, and metallogenic or mineral provinces. At its simplest, a province may describe a sedimentary basin and its fill (e.g. the Sydney Basin). However, provinces may also be defined by a complex history of tectonics, metamorphism, magmatism, or metallogenesis. Provinces outlines, including their subsurface extent, are compiled at around 1:1 million scale. Descriptions of the provinces include age and geological history, parent-child hierarchy, constituent stratigraphic units and relations to surrounding provinces.

This layer shows the boundaries of ground gravity surveys acquired by the NSW government. Details on the spacing and age of the gravity station within each project area are in the attributes. The information contained in this publication is based on knowledge and understanding at time of writing (April 2016). Because of advances in knowledge, users are reminded of the need to ensure that information upon which they rely is up to date. The information contained in this publication may not be or may no longer be aligned with government policy nor does the publication indicate or imply government policy.

Many airborne magnetic/radioelement surveys have been acquired by the NSW government through the NSW Exploration, Discovery 2000 and New Frontiers Initiative funding. Others have been acquired jointly with Geoscience Australia (formerly AGSO). Contained within this vector file are details on each of the surveys and some acquisition parameters, which will help locate survey data stored digitally. Not all of these surveys have both radioelement and magnetic data.Some project areas have grids that have been merged from private exploration company data (that are open file). These are attributed as "private" exploration company data in the shapefile. The information contained in this publication is based on knowledge and understanding at time of writing (December 2016). Because of advances in knowledge, users are reminded of the need to ensure that information upon which they rely is up to date. The information contained in this publication may not be or may no longer be aligned with government policy nor does the publication indicate or imply government policy.

AEM data has been acquired by the NSW government through NSW Exploration, Discovery 2000 and New Frontiers Initiative funding. Contained within this vector file is the location of AEMsurveys and acquisition parameters. The information contained in this publication is based on knowledge and understanding at time of writing (February 2017). Because of advances in knowledge, users are reminded of the need to ensure that information upon which they rely is up to date. The information contained in this publication may not be or may no longer be aligned with government policy nor does the publication indicate or imply government policy.

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.

The Geochemistry (Whole Rock) data set contains information about the chemistry of rocks sampled in New South Wales and held by the Geological Survey of NSW (GSNSW). The data has been captured from analyses conducted by the GSNSW and from other work including academic research & collaborative projects, mineral exploration reports and geoscientific publications. The database contains geochemical analyses on nearly 27,000 rock samples which have been collected from field work and drilling activities which date back to the nineteenth century. There are also a small number of assay & hydro-geochemical results. It is an important dataset as the whole rock analysis of rocks for major and trace elements allows classification of the lithology of a rock and provides insight into the conditions in which the rocks formed as well as their economic potential.

Drillhole sample geochemistry that has been reported by title holders to the department as part of the mineral exploration reporting requirements. The data is provided annually in the form of exploration data files and stored with the relevant tenement report in DIGS. Data mining of digital exploration data files stored in DIGS is largely complete for the period 2001 to present. Data mining continues for DIGS reports earlier than 2001 using OCR (optical character recognition) software to convert raster data into digital files for loading. Validation of data is an ongoing process. Data available to the public and industry is restricted to DIGS open file reports.

This layer shows the boundaries of each airborne gravity survey acquired by the NSW Government. Details on the spacing and age of the gravity data within each project area are in the attributes. The information contained in this publication is based on knowledge and understanding at time of writing (April 2017). Because of advances in knowledge, users are reminded of the need to ensure that information upon which they rely is up to date. The information contained in this publication may not be or may no longer be aligned with government policy nor does the publication indicate or imply government policy.