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Australia’s historical scientific archives are open for investigation by citizen scientists, such as myself. They hold our unique primary scientific records, data and references, and they are found in universities, museums, state libraries and government agencies, national archives and on researchers’ PCs. While our paper archives have recently been exposed to digitisation, modern digital scientific information is not being upgraded and collated into our modern digital knowledge-management ‘data mining’ global computational systems. I am writing this awareness article, flavoured with 40 years of seismological engagement and as a purposeful contribution in support of World Digital Preservation Day (22 November 2020), ‘At Risk Digital Materials’. This paper establishes that Queensland has an incomplete ‘public’ history of local tsunami hazard occurrence. Further, it announces the discovery of a new meteotsunami meteorological hazard occurrence on 3 June 1917. By retrieving the various types of archived data, this paper questions and reflects on our society’s lack of tsunami hazard preparedness, highlighting an obvious decline in scientific rigour in communicating such knowledge about our environment. This discussion of meteotsunamis illustrates the multivariate complexity of weather systems, with climate-change-related phenomena capable of creating coastal tsunami-like hazards commonly causally linked to undersea earthquakes and/or landslip or tectonic fault movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During his tenure as Chief Government Geologist of Queensland from 1908 until 1931, Benjamin Dunstan sold a complete Triassic amphibian fossil and Queensland's largest meteorite to overseas institutions. When he died in 1933, he left a personal collection of fossils and other geological material which his widow Ada Dunstan sold to the Natural History Museum in London. These included a large number of meteorites from Queensland's famous Tenham meteorite shower. This paper documents these transactions and finds that there was little consideration given in any of these cases to the value of these important geological specimens to Australian public collections or to the nation's geological heritage. Ethical questions remain about the standards of provenance and ownership applied by both vendors and purchasers, in particular the role of Dunstan in his capacity as Queensland's senior government geologist. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Eungella region of the Clarke Range, located in central coastal Queensland, Australia, represents a 'bridge' between the avifauna of the tropics and that of the subtropics. In this paper, we collate species records from automated acoustic recordings and field observations made during the Griffith University and Queensland Museum surveys of Eungella National Park and Pelion State Forest in 2013 and 2014, bird observations uploaded to the eBird database, and information available from local birders. So far, 236 bird species have been recorded in the Eungella region, representing 67 families - 36.4 per cent of the total of 648 species known from Queensland. Eungella National Park protects the core range of a species endemic to the Clarke Range, the Eungella Honeyeater (Bolemoreus heinwoodi), as well as numerous endemic subspecies and isolated populations of subtropical species. Many of these species and subspecies are restricted to cool upland rainforest and, as a consequence, are seriously threatened by climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An intensive, two-season survey of moths along an elevational transect from 200 to 1200 m above sea level was an integral part of the recent Eungella biodiversity survey. The overall results have been published elsewhere. In this paper we examine in finer detail the patterns of distribution and faunistics of one of the dominant taxa from that dataset. The Pyraloidea comprise two families of so-called micro-moths, the Pyralidae and the Crambidae. Overall we sampled more than 7000 individuals of more than 100 species. In spring these were principally in the lowland sites, but the summer samples were more evenly spread across elevations. In both seasons characteristic upland and lowland assemblages were apparent, separating at about 700 m above sea level. These elevational patterns were driven statistically by a small group of abundant species. Focusing on the Pyraustinae-Spilomelinae clade (91 species in our samples) and comparing them with samples from other Australian rainforest locations suggests that the Eungella forests represent the southernmost limits for 24 species, and the northern limits for five species. In other cases, the species is known from sites both north and south of Eungella. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This title of this paper could have been "Policy failures in managing the Queensland environment and a new role for the Royal Society of Queensland". In a sense, that is indeed the title. However, the Queensland situation is mirrored in other States and other countries. Science is consulted by Governments before decisions are made that affect the environment; voluminous reports are compiled (which may or may not reflect sound impartial science) and then decisions are made based on other criteria and mere lip service given to the real science. In this, the science organisations (societies, authorities, institutes and academic institutions) stand aloof and mute. This paper discusses the deleterious consequences resulting from a lack of political consensus and a politicised and under-resourced public service. A Queensland context is used, but the situation is universal. Finally, a call is made for science organisations to involve themselves in environmental issues - not in a partisan activist role, but by having a viewpoint and then communicating that viewpoint (and the rationale behind it) to the public. Fewer bad environmental decisions will be made, when science organisations lend the prestige of their names and the power of their knowledge and reasoning to the important issues of the day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews the last twenty two years (1993 to 2015) of inland aquatic science and its application in Queensland and assesses the achievements and learnings, and then proposes a way forward for the future. Many science initiatives and programs have come and gone with various degrees of success. Currently, there seems to be a strong focus on short-term, operational needs. There is very limited investment and capability in long-term strategic research, particularly to address recurring and emerging issues. The preferred way forward would be a mixture of partnership approaches underpinned by a strategic science plan and long term funding. The effectiveness of such research and partnership models should regularly be assessed for their cost and benefit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A "new" (post-mining) "economic future" is being envisioned for North Stradbroke Island (Minjerribah) that is imbued with a "sustainability" mantle through the use of a "strong, green" label. As Quandamooka people, and as educators and researchers, our purpose in writing this paper is threefold. The first is to draw attention to the ways in which the act of 'visioning' is historically and culturally bound, and politically invested. The second is to highlight differences and similarities in epistemological standpoints. The third is to raise questions for the future around how notions of sustainability are conceptualised. Historically, Anthropologists, Archaeologists and Natural Scientists trained in the Western tradition placed the highest value on new knowledge derived through the scientific method of objective empirical observation of physical phenomena. Contemporary Western science acknowledges the impossibility of earlier claims to objectivity, and has begun to place greater importance on, and incorporate, knowledge held by peoples Indigenous to a particular place. A point of difference between our knowledge systems was the historical position assumed in Western science that humans were autonomous from, and in control of, the natural world. The emergence of new approaches in scientific endeavour, including Ecological Science, which adopts a 'living systems' approach that understands the interrelatedness of all things, and Ethno-geology, a place-based approach which studies how geological features are understood in Ancient cultures, has brought these two knowledge systems closer together. However some distance remains between the values we ascribe to, and our regard for, country. To those envisioning the post-mining economic future of our dune island, based on sustainability values, we pose the question: "Is what is to be sustained in your vision actually sustainable?" [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fraser Island's perched dune lakes are magnets for tourists. Our research has documented the ecological consequences of unregulated visitor use of these systems, with a focus on the likely visitor-mediated delivery of nutrients to these oligotrophic systems. In addition to threats from visitors, a signifi cant sleeper issue for perched dune lakes is climate change. Perched dune lakes are not connected to the regional water table and water levels are known to fluctuate widely with local rainfall patterns. Given the projected changes in climate in the Fraser Island region - increased temperatures, reduced rainfall, increased evaporation and increased hydrologic variability -- we anticipate that lake levels are likely to fluctuate even more in the future. These fluctuations are likely to have both ecological and infrastructure consequences. In this paper, we present a conceptual model of the natural nutrient dynamics in perched dune lakes, with particular emphasis on the effects of water level fluctuations and grazing organisms. We then superimpose visitor activities and climate change and increased climatic variability on model functions, and suggest how they are likely to intensify interactions between nutrient processes and fluctuating hydrology. We predict that visitor-mediated nutrient inputs will stimulate algal growth, but that the consequences of this increase in algal biomass, especially for consumer organisms (but also for visitors themselves), will differ between wet (high water level) and dry (low water level) periods. Understanding the dynamic nature of algal production in perched dune lake ecosystems in the context of an increasingly variable climate, is essential to inform how these systems should be managed, particularly for the highly visited systems that inevitably experience the additional stress of nutrient inputs from visitors. Maintaining the natural oligotrophic status of perched dune lakes is an important management principle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though Bribie I. supports extensive areas of freshwater wetland, little has been published on the island's frog fauna. In this paper we review existing data on Bribie Island's frog fauna and that of other dune islands as well as providing new information on the occurrence, distribution and natural history of frogs on Bribie I. based on survey and monitoring work undertaken since 1996. Conservation management issues for frogs on Bribie I. are also discussed. Currently, 15 native frog species are known to occur on Bribie I., the same number as that recorded on Fraser and North Stradbroke Is. Amongst the species occurring on Bribie I. are three wallum-dependent 'acid' frog species listed as vulnerable under the Queensland Nature Conservation Act 1992: wallum froglet (Crinia tinnula); wallum rocketfrog (Litoria freycineti) and wallum sedgefrog (L. olongburensis). These three species appear to be widespread and abundant on Bribie I., except for settled areas in the south of the island. On Bribie I. all three species and a fourth more widely-distributed species, the scarlet sided pobblebonk (Limnodynastes terraereginae), breed readily in tannin-stained waters of pH 3.5 and less -- waters toxic to most other amphibian species. Tolerance of Bribie I. L. terraereginae to acidic waters is especially remarkable with larvae of this species recorded in water as acidic as pH 3.0. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper it is demonstrated, through an instance of a localized short-term oscillating mode of water extraction from a large coastal oligotrophic hind-dune peat swamp, Eighteen Mile Swamp, North Stradbroke Island, that the mode of water extraction is as important as the amount of water extracted. A six-year duration, high-frequency drought-wetting cycle imposed by a point-source extraction regime has had apparently irreversible effects on the adjacent peat and macroinvertebrates. The legacy of this short-term alteration in hydrological conditions has been the disintegration of the peat with consequent release of large amounts of otherwise captured nutrients and a signifi cant increase in biological oxygen demand. This is associated with signifi cant reductions in macroinvertebrate abundance and richness, with a reduction in soft-bodied taxa as Coleoptera becoming dominant. Although full suites of biota were present in nearby unaffected locations, the substrate is sufficiently altered that there can be no short-term prospect of rehabilitation of the area affected by this water extraction. This chain of events illustrates a catastrophic regime shift or 'ecological surprise'. Defining the point of no return (a threshold) would have to be demonstrated experimentally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drought in the earliest years of the twentieth century stimulated much discussion in Brisbane about the quality of the water supplied to the rapidly growing city. One of the various schemes developed by the Board of Waterworks to obtain better water was the Stradbroke Island Scheme. Although not adopted, its consideration required the close examination of the island's topographic and hydrological features, including an exhaustive survey of the island by Herbert W. Lethem, completed early in 1903. His detailed map and report, together with reports by others such as Board engineers H. G. Foster-Barham (1901) and J. Kemp (1906), and American expert A. Hazen (1907), provide a signifi cant body of scientifi c knowledge of Stradbroke Island. These records portray the island long before the beginning of mineral sand mining (1940s) and municipal water extraction (1990s). This paper is an historical account of the Stradbroke Island Scheme and an assessment of its legacy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]