Research Highlights

University of Queensland palaeontologists, with the support of an ARC Discovery Project grant, are using the latest scientific technology to capture new information that will help bring a 130-million-year-old dinosaur landscape back to life. The research team recently returned from a dig along the ‘Dinosaur Coast’ in the remote Kimberley region of Western Australia, documenting fossilised dinosaur tracks to learn more about what sorts of dinosaurs inhabited Australia 130 million years ago. The project used high-tech gadgets, including a remote-controlled aerial drone and a hand-held laser-scanner developed by CSIRO as well as low-tech digging and scrubbing the tracks for photographing and documentation. Lead investigator Dr Steven Salisbury said that despite recent National Heritage Listing of the Dampier Peninsula’s Dinosaur tracks, many of the tracks remain largely undocumented and their full scientific significance is poorly understood. “The results of this project should allow us to construct high-resolution, 3D digital outcrop models of site and bring landscape back to life.”

Media issued by The University of Queensland.

New research from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University shows that fishing is having a significant impact on the make-up of fish population of the Great Barrier Reef. The findings suggest that removing predator fish such as coral trout and snapper, through fishing, causes significant changes to the make-up of the reef’s fish population such as the balance and structure of the coral reef ecosystem. The findings support the continued and improved use of the existing marine networks on the Great Barrier Reef.

Media issued by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies

ARC Future Fellow and accomplished researcher, Professor Matt King from the University of Tasmania, has delivered the Royal Society of London’s 2015 Kavli Lecture on estimating the rate of loss of land ice from Antarctica—work for which he has also been awarded the prestigious 2015 Kavli Medal. Professor King contributed to the first global agreement on Antarctica’s impact on sea levels rising due to collapsing ice sheets. Prior to 2012, there were conflicting estimates suggesting that Antarctica's ice sheets were either growing or shrinking. Professor King's research has helped resolve one source of disagreement by using satellites that measure changes in the Earth's gravity field from which the mass of land ice being lost can be calculated. "We now know that the land ice of Antarctica is flowing into the ocean faster than snowfall replenishes it, with the continent losing 130 billion tonnes of ice each year," Professor King said. "The big, grounded ice sheets of Antarctica are contributing to sea-level rises at double the rate they were in the 1990s.”

Media issued by the University of Tasmania

A new study by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED) reveals that expanding existing highways, instead of building new roads, is the best way to minimise the impact of increasing traffic and growing cities, on koalas. “The impact of roads on wildlife is growing rapidly as we continue to expand our cities,” said Dr Jonathan Rhodes from CEED and The University of Queensland (UQ). “Animals worldwide, including mammals, birds, reptiles and frogs, are increasingly threatened by high traffic volumes.” The CEED team has developed a world-first mathematical model that will help determine the most cost-effective way to shield wildlife populations that live near roads—such as where to build fences, and over- or underpasses, to give these animals the best protection on limited conservation funds. 

Media issued by the ARC Centre of Excellence or Environmental Decisions