Seabed mapping on Australia's southern margin: Baseline information for science and marine management

In ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1994, Australia took responsibility for a marine jurisdiction that is more than 1.5 times the area of the landmass. While ownership of offshore resources provided under UNCLOS bestows certain rights (including exploitation), it also carries a range of obligations, including the protection and preservation of the marine environment. In order to fulfil these obligations, there is a key need for the acquisition and interpretation of baseline scientific information that will support the sustainable use and management of marine resources. The most critical baseline information required is the detailed depth and shape of the seafloor and the nature of the shallow substrate, particularly in high-use areas. Such information underpins the activities of virtually all government, industry and academic sectors working offshore, including petroleum and minerals, fisheries and mariculture, engineering, defence, transport, tourism and environmental management. Knowledge of the seabed is also critical for the issues of multiple sequential land use to be addressed offshore. The current state of such knowledge is extremely variable, with the highest quality 3-D seabed mapping data being available over only about 5% of the Australian marine jurisdiction. Certain basic data sets should be available to all organisations and individuals working in the marine environment. Description and discussion of the seabed mapping component of acquiring those data sets on the southern margin of Australia form the basis of this paper. Priorities for seabed mapping are suggested, e.g. the southeastern and somhwestern margins of the continent

Submarine landslides on the upper southeast Australian passive continental margin – preliminary findings

The southeast Australian passive continental margin is narrow, steep and sediment-deficient, and characterized by relatively low rates of modern sedimentation. Upper slope (\u3c1200m) sediments comprise mixtures of calcareous and terrigenous sand and mud. Three of twelve sediment cores recovered from geologically-recent, submarine landslides located offshore New South Wales/Queensland (NSW/QLD) are interpreted to have sampled failure surfaces at depths of between 85 cm and 220 cm below the present-day seabed. Differences in sediment physical properties are recorded above and below the three slide-plane boundaries. Sediment taken directly above the inferred submarine landslide failure surfaces and presumed to be post-landslide, returned radiocarbon ages of 15.8 ka, 20.7 ka and 20.1 ka. The last two ages correspond to adjacent slide features, which are inferred to be consistent with their being triggered by a single event such as an earthquake. Slope stability models based on classical soil mechanics and measured sediment shearstrengths indicate that the upper slope sediments should be stable. However, multibeam sonar data reveal that many upper slope landslides occur across the margin and that submarine landsliding is a common process. We infer from these results that: a) an unidentified mechanism regularly acts to reduce the shear resistance of these sediments to the very low values required to enable slope failure, and/or b) the margin experiences seismic events that act to destabilise the slope sediments

Fifty Years of Scientific Ocean Drilling

Author Posting. © Oceanography Society , 2019. This article is posted here by permission of Oceanography Society for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Becker, K., Austin, J. A., Jr., Exon, N., Humphris, S., Kastner, M., McKenzie, J. A., Miller, K. G., Suyehiro, K., & Taira, A. Fifty years of scientific ocean drilling. Oceanography, 32(1), (2019):17-21, doi:10.5670/oceanog.2019.110.Nearly a century after the first systematic study of the global ocean and seafloor by HMS Challenger (1871–1876), US scientists began to drill beneath the seafloor to unlock the secrets of the ~70% of Earth’s surface covered by the seas. Fifty years of scientific ocean drilling by teams of international partners has provided unparalleled advancements in Earth sciences. Here, we briefly review the history, impacts, and scientific achievements of five decades of coordinated scientific ocean drilling

California\u27s Opportunity to Create Historical Precedent Regarding a Mediated Settlement Agreement\u27s Effect on Mediation Confidentiality and Arbitrability

Confidentiality serves as a cornerstone of mediation. The public policy underlying confidentiality is the promotion of candid communications between disputing parties. As explained in this article, mediation confidentiality affects more than just communication. It affects other important mediation values, such as party self-determination and mediator impartiality. Mediation confidentiality affects parties\u27 ability to enforce their mediated agreements. Finally, confidentiality affects multiple dispute resolution processes, as seen by the interrelated nature of mediation and arbitration in the seminal case of Fair v. Bakhtiari

How Can a Mediator Be Both Impartial and Fair: Why Ethical Standards of Conduct Create Chaos for Mediators

This article focuses on newly developing Standards designed to regulate the mediation industry with respect to civil disputes. The particular focus is on the mediator\u27s requirements of neutrality and impartiality and whether these requirements are impacted by assurances of a fair result and other fairness concepts such as a balanced process and informed decision making. The basic problem is that mediators are guided by Standards and stand-alone definitions of mediation, yet many Standards contain contradictory or vague provisions. Furthermore, the mediator\u27s actual role may be dictated by her own personal style, values, and commercial needs in conjunction with the parties\u27 particular need

Tectonic history of northern New Caledonia Basin from deep offshore seismic reflection: Relation to late Eocene obduction in New Caledonia, southwest Pacific

International audienceNew, high-quality multichannel seismic reflection data from the western New Caledonia offshore domain allow for the first time the direct, continuous connection of seismic reflectors between the Deep Sea Drilling Project 208 drill hole on the Lord Howe Rise and the New Caledonia Basin. A novel seismic interpretation is hence proposed for the northern New Caledonia Basin stratigraphy, which places the Eocene/Oligocene unconformity deeper than previously thought and revisits the actual thickness of the pre-Oligocene sequences. A causal link is proposed between the obduction of the South Loyalty Basin over New Caledonia (NC) and the tectonic history of the northern New Caledonia Basin. Here it is suggested that as the South Loyalty Basin was being obducted during early Oligocene times, the NC Basin subsided under the effect of the overloading and underthrusted to accommodate the compressional deformation, which resulted in (1) the uplift of the northern Fairway Ridge and (2) the sinking of the western flank of New Caledonia. This event also had repercussions farther west with the incipient subsidence of the Lord Howe Rise

The Effects that Mediator Styles Impose on Neutrality and Impartiality Requirements of Mediation

This Article examines current laws, policies, and procedures that define and attempt to regulate the mediation field