Abstract This book aims to help you to extract maximum value from aeromagnetic survey data. It shows how to integrate these data with geological data to build an interpretation that matches the objectives of your project. We emphasise that the main ingredients in a high-quality interpretation are astute use of the geoscientist’s brain and adequate time, not only to digest diverse clusters of data, but to integrate these into a working map that drives our project forward. The rewards for this (usually modest) effort and time can be substantial – a resource discovery, a quantum leap in understanding of local geological evolution or a new direction and momentum in exploration, to name a few.

The Mount Hay block is a ~12-km-thick, deep continental crustal section exposed in the Arunta inlier in central Australia. The ~4-km-wide, granulite-facies (770–776 ± 38 °C) Capricorn ridge shear zone cross-cuts the dominant granulite-facies fabric of the Mount Hay block. In its present geometry, the Capricorn ridge shear zone contains a steeply south-southeast-dipping foliation, steeply east-southeast-plunging lineation, and south-side-up shear-sense indicators. When post-granulite-facies tilting is removed, the shear zone restores to a shallowly to moderately (30–50°) dipping, normal shear zone in which the lineation is oblique to the inferred Proterozoic plate boundary, suggesting oblique divergence. The field observations and reconstruction indicate that strain can be localized in the high-temperature, deep-crustal roots of extensional fault systems. This geometry of a discrete, moderately dipping, deep-crustal shear zone is consistent with simple-shear conceptual models of crustal extension.

Linear dunes are the most abundant type of desert dune and the dominant land-form on the continent of Australia. This paper reports the results of GPR surveys across linear dunes in the deserts of central Australia including parts of the Simpson and Strzelecki deserts. The GPR data suffered from severely limited penetration and poor resolution due to signal attenuation associated with a high proportion of mud, which, probably due to progressive illuviation, increases with dune age. However, although such conditions prevail in much of central Australia, useful stratigraphic information can still be obtained there using GPR. Buried palaeosol horizons within dunes have been identified, and taken in conjunction with thermoluminescence (TL) ages from the dunes, it is possible to make some interpretations of linear dune evolution. TL ages show that some dunes are older in the south and young toward the north. It is possible to place some constraints on rates of vertical, lateral, and dune-front accretion within the linear dunes with ∼2–6 m, 0–50 m and 3000 m, respectively, over the last ca. 10 ka. The combination of GPR profiles and TL dating of linear dunes in the Simpson and Strzelecki deserts confirms Holocene modification of preexisting linear dunes with minor easterly accretion that has contributed to the asymmetry of vegetated linear dunes in central Australia. The results support the hypothesis that linear dunes in Australia are composite forms with a long and sometimes complex history.