Abstract Three Precambrian basement provinces extend from the southern coast of Australia into East Antarctica when reconstructed in a Gondwana configuration. These are, from east to west, the Mawson Craton, and the Albany–Fraser and Pinjarra Orogens. The Mawson Craton preserves evidence for tectonic activity from the late Archaean until the earliest Mesoproterozoic. It is exposed in the Gawler Craton of South Australia, the Terre Adélie and King George V Land coastline of East Antarctica, and the Miller Range of the central Transantarctic Mountains. It may form a significant part of the ice-covered East Antarctic Shield, although insufficient data are available to constrain its lateral extent. The Mawson Craton underwent late Palaeoproterozoic tectonism along its eastern margin (the Kimban Orogeny) and the occurrence of c. 1700Ma eclogites in the Transantarctic Mountains implies that this was, in part, a collisional event, although elsewhere it was characterized by low P/T metamorphism. The western margin of the Mawson Craton collided with a continental fragment comprising the Nawa Domain of the Gawler Craton, the Coompana Block and the Nornalup Complex of Western Australia at c. 1560Ma during the Kararan Orogeny. The western edge of the Nornalup Complex later collided with the Biranup and Fraser Complexes and Yilgarn Craton to form the Albany–Fraser Orogen during two stages of tectonism at c. 1350–1260 and 1210–1140Ma. The Pinjarra Orogen truncates the western margin of the Yilgarn Craton and Albany–Fraser Orogen, and contains allochthonous 1100–1000Ma gneissic blocks transported along the craton margin during at least two stages of Neoproterozoic transcurrent movement. It divides East Gondwana into Australo-Antarctic and Indo–Antarctic domains, which are distinct continental fragments with different Proterozoic histories that were juxtaposed by oblique collision at 550–500Ma during the assembly of Gondwana. The path taken by the Pinjarra Orogen beneath the Antarctic ice sheet is unknown, but it is of similar width and length to the East African Orogen, and must have been a fundamental Neoproterozoic boundary of critical importance to supercontinent assembly and breakup.

Abstract A 6.3 m tsunami swept through Kitimat Arm, British Columbia in 1974. An even larger wave struck and damaged the Northlands Navigation dock at Kitimat and the Haisla First Nation docks at Kitamaat Village the following year. Further down the fjord, two large coastal block failures were observed on the fjord walls across from the Gitga'at village of Hartley Bay. Several large infrastructure projects have recently been proposed for the Kitimat Arm coastal areas. The Geological Survey of Canada has therefore embarked on a five-year project to understand the magnitude and frequency of submarine mass movements in this fjord system to provide information regarding the risks from these events and to propose mitigation measures that may reduce these risks. We provide here an overview and the main results to date of an ongoing multidisciplinary study, which includes palaeotsunami studies, geomorphological and sub-seabed mapping, subaerial landslide hazard assessment, tsunami modelling, in situ and laboratory geotechnical testing, and the real-time tracking of seismic activity and seafloor movement. Some of these activities are reported in greater detail elsewhere in this book. The results of this research are summarized as a list of conclusions and recommendations to the Government of Canada.

Abstract The Nova-Bollinger deposit is a large nickel-copper sulfide deposit discovered in 2012 by a junior Australian exploration company, Sirius Resources. The deposit is interpreted to represent a magmatic sulfide accumulation within several stacked mafic sills that intruded a sequence of sedimentary rocks, which has been subsequently recrystallized and variably deformed by lower granulite facies metamorphism. The deposit is located in the Albany-Fraser orogen of Western Australia—a Proterozoic belt broadly similar to the Circum-Superior belt in North America, which hosts the Thompson and Raglan nickel mining camps. Although some previous explorers had recognized the similarity between these areas and also undertaken limited exploration for nickel, the prospectivity of the Albany-Fraser orogen for magmatic nickel deposits was largely unrecognized and the area was virtually unexplored prior to the involvement of Sirius. The discovery is somewhat unusual because it is a blind, grassroots discovery made in what was previously assumed to be an unendowed geologic terrane by a small company with a small exploration budget. It is also unusual because the style of deposit discovered was exactly that which was originally targeted. The case study of the discovery includes the geologic concept, the exploration methods, and the key circumstances that led to the discovery of Nova-Bollinger. In one sense the discovery represents a textbook example of the deliberate and successful application of good geologic science and appropriate exploration methodology, but in another sense it was the culmination of numerous key decisions and seemingly unrelated events that spanned a period of nearly fifty years that created the necessary building blocks for the ultimate success. These building blocks include the involvement of a variety of other elements, including the efforts of previous mining companies, an accident by NASA, the persistence of a wealthy Australian prospector, and the initiative of the Government and Geological Survey of Western Australia. In terms of process, the deposit was discovered by systematically using various methods that were tailored to the target style and the nature of the terrane, and also appropriate to the scale and stage of exploration. These comprised regional aeromagnetics for target definition, soil geochemistry for target verification and prioritization, shallow reconnaissance drilling for defining the source of soil anomalies, ground electromagnetic geophysics for defining discrete drill targets, and finally drilling. It is critical to also evaluate how information and misinformation can potentially affect the exploration process at every step, and how entirely extrinsic factors such as timing and luck can determine the outcome of the process. Of particular interest in the case of the Nova-Bollinger discovery is insight into how junior explorers operate compared to the bigger companies, what they have to do to be effective explorers, how they contribute to the overall well-being of the resources sector, and how their success is influenced by the degree to which three factors coincide—motive, means, and opportunity.