An Indo-Pacifc coral spawning database

The discovery of multi-species synchronous spawning of scleractinian corals on the Great Barrier Reef in the 1980s stimulated an extraordinary effort to document spawning times in other parts of the globe. Unfortunately, most of these data remain unpublished which limits our understanding of regional and global reproductive patterns. The Coral Spawning Database (CSD) collates much of these disparate data into a single place. The CSD includes 6178 observations (3085 of which were unpublished) of the time or day of spawning for over 300 scleractinian species in 61 genera from 101 sites in the Indo-Pacific. The goal of the CSD is to provide open access to coral spawning data to accelerate our understanding of coral reproductive biology and to provide a baseline against which to evaluate any future changes in reproductive phenology

The Monterey event in the Mediterranean: A record from shelf sediments of Malta

Oligo-Miocene carbonate platform and shelf sediments outcropping on the Maltese Islands provide an excellent archive of the paleoceanography of the central Mediterranean. A sequence of shallow water limestones, than shelf limestones, and marls, followed again by shallow water limestones, reflects drowning of a carbonate platform, the establishment of a shelf environment and, in the late Miocene, renewed progradation and aggradation of shallow water carbonates. The sequence recording the deepening of the Maltese platform contains several phosphorite hardgrounds and phosphorite pebble beds. These phosphorites were dated with strontium isotopes. Major episodes of phosphogenesis occurred between 25 and 16 Ma, and they are coeval with those phosphorite events reported from Florida and North Carolina. A Miocene carbon isotope and oxygen isotope stratigraphy was established on planktic and benthic foraminifera and on bulk samples. A major carbon isotope excursion with an amplitude of up to +l‰ between 18 and 12.5 Ma can be correlated with the globally recognized Monterey carbon isotope excursion. This is the first record of this event both in shallow water sediments and in the Mediterranean. The carbon isotope excursion precedes an oxygen isotope excursion which also was recognized in deep-sea records. Major episodes of phosphogenesis and platform drowning preceded the carbon isotope excursion by up to millions of years

Pivoting the Map: Australia's Indo-Pacific System

In the inaugural Centre of Gravity paper, Rory Medcalf, of the Lowy Institute for International Policy explores what is the best way to describe Australia's region. Medcalf argues that the concept of an 'Indo-Pacific' best captures the strategic environment Australia finds itself in. This concept better recognises the major economic, security and identity challenges faced by Australia. It also places Australia in a prime position to involve itself in the development of the region. Finally, Medcalf explores the surprisingly longstanding history of the concept, and highlights its policy relevance for Australia

Debating the Quad

In this Centre of Gravity paper, six of Australia’s leading scholars and policy experts debate Australian participation in the ‘Australia-India-Japan-United States consultations on the Indo-Pacific’ - known universally as the ‘Quad’. A decade since its first iteration, the revival of the Quad presents significant questions for Australia and the regional order. Is the Quad a constructive partnership of the region’s major powers to safeguard regional stability, uphold the rules-based order and promote security cooperation? Is it a concert of democracies seeking to contain China? Or is it an emerging strategic alignment that risks precipitating the very confrontation with China it seeks to avoid? Or is it something else entirely

Beijing's Belligerent Revisionism: Reconstituting Asia's 'End of History'?

In this Centre of Gravity paper, Christopher B. Roberts, Director of the National Asian Studies Centre at the University of Canberra and a Visiting Fellow at the Strategic & Defence Studies Centre, argues that Francis Fukuyama’s famous ‘end of history’ thesis is being challenged by China’s rise. Beijing’s capitalist authoritarian approach to development and international influence is now threatening Indo-Pacific stability

Australia and Thailand - A Strategic Reset?

In this multi-author edition of the Centre of Gravity series, co-editors William Tow and Suphat Suphachalasai work with leading strategic thinkers to explore the relationship between Australia and Thailand

Why Australia Needs a Radically New Defence Policy

In this Centre of Gravity paper, three of Australia's leading strategists and defence practitioners from the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Emeritus Professor Paul Dibb, Honorary Professor Richard Brabin-Smith, and Honorary Professor Brendan Sargeant, make the case for bold, new strategic thinking and imagination in Australian defence policy

Australia's Defence Policy after COVID-19

The 2020 Defence Strategic Update and accompanying Force Structure Plan, and the Defence Science and Technology Strategy 2030 are, when taken together, among the more important defence policy documents that the Government has released in recent years. The timing amplifies their significance. They arrive at a time when Australia is experiencing a momentous crisis that challenges every aspect of our national life and will have consequences for decades to come

A Tale of Two Giants: Wilhelm G. Solheim II (1924–2014) and William A. Longacre Jr. (1937–2015)

This essay is not so much an obituary or combined obituaries as a personal appreciation of two archaeologists, Wilhelm G. Solheim II and William A. Longacre Jr., both of whom profoundly affected their home universities, Philippines studies, and the lives of many scholars. For this tale of two giants, I draw on my own and others’ memories, writings of others cited herein, and an amazingly detailed vita in my possession covering Bill Solheim’s work from 1947 through 1986. This is not a detailed accounting of their many research projects and accomplishments, but instead highlights the latter decades of their careers as they increasingly focused their research on theoretical and topical issues concerning the Philippines. I will attempt to write this accolade in the styles of both men, with the casualness of Bill Solheim and the clarity of Bill Longacre