News – Page 38

Seeking the Master Cave – Tasmania’s Junee-Florentine Karst System – Talk – Tuesday, January 19 2016, 8.00 pm Royal Society Room, Customs House building, TMAG, Hobart. Entrance via Dunn Place. Excursion – Saturday, 23 January 2016

Tasmania’s Junee-Florentine karst system at Mt Field has provided cavers and speleologists with new and exciting discoveries for decades. The area contains Australia’s deepest caves and many of its longest. Alan Jackson will be discussing the history of the area’s exploration including the tools and techniques employed to systematically discover, explore and document its caves.

Alan Jackson will deliver a talk on the Junee Florentine karst area to be followed by an excursion.

Alan Jackson is an avid cave explorer based in Hobart. As a member of the Hobart club Southern Tasmanian Caverneers since 2001, he has dedicated his spare time to exploring and documenting the deep, sporting caves of the Junee-Florentine.

The dates are:

Talk – Tuesday 19 January 2016, 8.00 pm Royal Society Room, Customs House building, TMAG, Hobart. Entrance via Dunn Place.

Excursion – Saturday 23 January 2016

Members will need to provide their own transport, lunch and refreshments.

The excursion is intended to show the physical side of the talk on the Tuesday but each event is a stand-alone item.

The Junee Florentine has a magnificent example of stream capture, where streams running down the northern sides of Mt Field West do not reach the Florentine River, but go under the ridge and emerge at the Junee resurgence, near Maydena.

Please register your interest in the karst talk and, or, excursion using the contact us link.

Connections between Volcanoes and Ore Deposits – Professor Jocelyn McPhie – 22 November 2015

Professor Jocelyn McPhie

Adjunct Professor, UTAS, Principal Consultant, McPhie Volcanology

Connections between Volcanoes and Ore Deposits

Active volcanoes are locations where the Earth’s internal heat energy is focussed and channelled to the surface. This heat energy drives the circulation of subsurface water, gradually leaching metals from the enclosing rocks and creating metal-rich “hydrothermal fluids” that may form ore deposits. Some volcanoes erupt magmas that are especially metal-rich and directly generate ore deposits without the involvement of any hydrothermal fluid. Yet other kinds of volcanoes are simply carriers of valuable commodities to the Earth’s surface. Active volcanoes eventually become extinct but the ore deposits connected with them remain. Finding these ore deposits depends on understanding the volcanoes they were associated with.

Prof. Jocelyn McPhie is a volcanologist with more than 30 years’ experience, mainly in academic positions in Australia, Germany and the USA. Her research contributes to the understanding of how volcanoes work, especially volcanoes on the seafloor, and the connections between volcanoes and ore deposits. She currently operates as a consultant to the mining industry while retaining an Adjunct Professor position at the University of Tasmania.

Sunday 22nd November 2015 2.00 pm Meeting Room, QVMAG at Inveresk

Admission: $6 General Public, $4 Friends of the Museum and Students

Free for members of The Royal Society of Tasmania

To assist us with the organization of this event

RSVP by Thursday 19th November 2015:

Email bookings@qvmag.tas.gov.au or telephone 6323 3798

JOINT LECTURE WITH AUSTRALIAN ACADEMY OF TECHNOLOGICAL SCIENCES AND ENGINEERING – Professor James Vickers and Professor Alison Venn – Wednesday 11 November, 6.30 pm Sir Stanley Burbury Theatre

The two speakers who will be presenting lectures are:

Professor James Vickers, Wicking Dementia Centre:

Disease modification and risk reduction: new approaches to tackling dementia and

Professor Alison Venn, Deputy Director of the Menzies Institute for Medical Research:

Investigating the childhood origins of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes

Professor James Vickers: Disease modification and risk reduction: new approaches to tackling dementia.

With the ageing of the world-wide population and the lack of effective therapeutic interventions, the numbers of people with dementia will increase dramatically over the next few decades. There are a number of diseases that cause dementia, the majority of which are degenerative and progressive, involving specific pathological changes in the brain on the background of ageing. Once substantial neuronal degeneration has occurred, it is not likely that this pathology can be reversed. Hence, there is substantial research interest currently in slowing or eliminating pathology at the very earliest stages of disease, potentially before overt symptoms, or targeting modifiable risk factors throughout life to delay dementia. The Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre is working at identifying the earliest brain changes that lead to dementia as well as new approaches to inhibit such pathology. The Centre also has a major interventional project, the Tasmanian Healthy Brain Project, investigating whether complex mental stimulation in mid to later life may help reduce ageing-related cognitive decline and risk of dementia. In addition, we are undertaking laboratory studies on how cognitive enrichment may boost brain plasticity.

James Vickers holds the positions of Chair of Pathology, Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Health and Co-Director of the Wicking Dementia Research and Education Centre at the University of Tasmania. His qualifications include a Bachelor of Science, PhD and Doctor of Science. He is also currently a board member of the Royal Hobart Hospital Research Foundation, Chair of the Scientific Panel for the Alzheimer’s Australia Dementia Research Foundation and President of the Australasian Neuroscience Society.

Professor Alison Venn: Investigating the childhood origins of (adult) cardiovascular disease and diabetes

Professor Alison Venn is an epidemiologist and Deputy Director of the Menzies Institute for Medical Research. Her interests are in the epidemiology of chronic disease with a particular focus on obesity and lifestyle risk factors. She leads the Childhood Determinants of Adult Health Study – a national follow-up of 8,500 Australian children investigating childhood influences on cardiovascular disease and diabetes risk in adulthood, and is an investigator on a major US-funded collaboration pooling similar data from 40,000 children across three countries.

Wednesday 11 November, 6.30 pm Sir Stanley Burbury Theatre, UTAS, Churchill Avenue, Sandy Bay (entry from Churchill Avenue)

All interested people are welcome. Free admission.

Dr Rachel Popelka-Filcoff presents Tracing the Past: Characterisation of Indigenous Australian Pigments to Understand Technology and Exchange: Wednesday 4 November, 8.00 pm

Natural mineral pigments are significant in Aboriginal Australian culture, and applied to a variety of natural matrices such as wood and bark to create objects such as boomerangs and shields and bark paintings. Ochre (Fe-oxide pigment), is used for a variety of red, brown, orange and yellow colours and other natural mineral pigments such as kaolinite are used for white colours. Mixtures and applications of pigments present a challenging analytical problem, especially towards the non-destructive elemental analysis of mixed pigments on objects with a variety of shapes and sizes.

This presentation will describe our recent research into methods to characterize the complexity of Indigenous Australian ochre pigments. We have studied ochre from several known ochre sources around Australia by several techniques, including neutron activation analysis (NAA), X-ray fluorescence microscopy and near-IR spectroscopy. The combination of these techniques offers insight into the complex mineralogy and elemental composition of these natural materials.

Our results demonstrate the advantages of non-destructive analysis and sensitive methods towards the analysis of Aboriginal Australian objects. This presentation will cover some of our recent work including the first non-destructive study of natural pigments on Aboriginal Australian objects directly at a synchrotron, micro-characterisation of mineral pigments and provenance studies with Australian ochre.

Rachel Popelka-Filcoff is an Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering (AINSE) Senior Research Fellow in the School of Chemical and Physical Sciences at Flinders University.

Her research program uses radio-analytical and spectroscopic methods for the application to cultural, environmental and forensic questions. Her work is to the first comprehensive characterisation of Australian Aboriginal natural mineral pigments on cultural heritage materials, including ochre, by several advanced analytical methods. She also analyses uranium materials by a variety of methods for international nuclear forensics projects.

A significant portion of her research is based at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), as well as collaborations with other forensic and cultural heritage institutes and universities. Rachel holds a BA in Archaeology and Classics from Washington University in St Louis (USA), a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Missouri (USA), and completed a National Research Council postdoc at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST, USA).

She has received awards for her research including the South Australian Tall Poppy of the Year in 2012, which recognises to top early career researcher in the state. She has also had her research profiled in several scientific and general media outlets such as Cosmos Magazine, Chemistry in Australia, and Chemistry World, and several radio interviews.

Rachel is the Vice President/President Elect of the Society for Archaeological Sciences, and is on the editorial board of Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. She is on the executive committee for the Early and Mid Career Research Forum for the Australian Academy of Science.

Wednesday 4 November, 8.00 pm Royal Society Room, Customs House Building, TMAG,
19 Davey St. Hobart (entry from Dunn Place)
All interested people are welcome. Free admission.

DOCTORAL (PhD) AWARD, 2015 for a recently-graduated doctoral (PhD) academic, who has made significant advances in the course of their doctoral research.

DOCTORAL (PHD) AWARD, 2015

The Royal Society of Tasmania has instituted an annual award for a recently graduated doctoral (PhD) academic, who has made significant advances in the course of his/her doctoral research.

The Award shall be in any field – sciences, medicine, arts or humanities – within the purview of the Society.
The Award shall be made no more than three years after graduation (PhD degree).
The work must have been largely carried out in Tasmania or under the aegis of a Tasmanian-based organisation.

The value of the award is $2000.

For further information and application requirements please see below or https://rst.org.au/awards/awards-by-name/

Nominations must be received no later than 4^th December 2015

The conditions of the Award are:

The Award shall be made no more than three years after graduation (PhD degree);

To be awarded in any field – sciences, medicine, arts or humanities – within the purview of the Society;
The Award to be for work leading to significant advances based on the PhD research as evidenced by published or in press peer-reviewed papers in national/international literature;
The work to have been carried out largely in Tasmania or under the aegis of a Tasmanian-based organisation;
The nationality of the recipient is not to be considered in making the Award; that is the Award is not restricted to Australian nationals;
The nominee is developing a career in the field of study;
The award is to be available annually, but will not be awarded if there is no candidate of sufficient quality;
Expressions of interest are to be sought widely from all relevant institutions on an annual basis, and must include a nomination from the candidates supervisor or Head of Department;
The recipient will be encouraged to address the Society;
The value of the Award shall be $2000.

Nomination Process

All applications must include:

A letter of nomination from the candidate’s PhD supervisor or Head of Department. Nominations will not be considered without this document.

The letter of nomination (1) must include a statement of the new and original contribution to the field of research.
A full academic CV including the date of PhD graduation – which must have been after 14 November, 2012.
An abstract (not more than one page) of the PhD study, including the thesis title.
One copy of each relevant published or in presspaper on which the nomination is based.
A copy of the candidate’s PhD thesis – this will be returned.

Note: Candidates may not nominate themselves.

Applications should be addressed to:

Dr John Thorne

The Convener, Honours Committee

The Royal Society of Tasmania

GPO BOX 1166

HOBART TASMANIA 7001

Commercialisation of New Agricultural Crops in Tasmania: Some Lessons from the Past and Present – Dr Les Baxter, Director of Agriculture R&D at Tasmanian Alkaloids – 25 October 2015

Dr Les Baxter, Director of Agriculture R&D at Tasmanian Alkaloids will present – Commercialisation of New Agricultural Crops in Tasmania: Some Lessons from the Past and Present – in the Meeting Room, QVMAG at Inveresk at 2.00 pm Sunday 25th October 2015

Admission: $6 General Public, $4 Friends of the Museum and Students

Free for members of The Royal Society of Tasmania

To assist us with the organisation of this event

RSVP by Thursday 22nd October 2015:

Email bookings@qvmag.tas.gov.au or telephone 6323 3798

Tasmania’s climate, agro ecology, available resources and expertise make it ideally placed for the commercialisation of a range of new crop species. To date the results from attempts to commercialise many of these opportunities has been mixed. Using case studies from a range of successful, unsuccessful and nascent new crops developments, this presentation considers the factors which have contributed to the success and failure of these ventures and how they may be more effectively managed in the future.

Dr Les Baxter is currently the Director of Agricultural R&D at Tasmanian Alkaloids. He has over 35 years experience in both the public and private sectors in horticultural agronomy, research and development, extension, commercialisation of new crops and industry development. Les has worked in Australia and overseas on a wide range of agricultural crops including temperate and tropical fruits and vegetables, essential oils, green tea, wasabi, extractive and plantation crops. He has worked for over 15 years in the agricultural sector in Tasmania including General Jones, Essential Oils of Tasmania, Tasmanian Department of Primary Industries, Horticulture Australia and Tasmanian Alkaloids.

Postgraduate night – 6 October 2015

Post Graduate night

‘Like a Nobleman’s Park’: The Landscape of an Expanding Colony

Imogen Wegman, University of Tasmania

Following the 1803 British settlement of Tasmania the land was roughly mapped. Over the next thirty years much of this was granted out to settlers. Though the intentions and official procedure are well-documented, the actual process has never been systematically analysed. This paper discusses the potential for using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to bring a systematic geospatial approach to aid understandings of the developmental stages of a colony. Using land conveyance records and maps, surveyors’ journals, official papers and muster data, the paper will demonstrate the capacity for creating a visual and data-rich image of European expansion throughout the first thirty years of the Van Diemen’s Land colony. In particular the paper will discuss ways of using GIS to visually explore settler exploitation of pre-1803 land-use patterns, the stepped transition from a subsistence to export economy, and the distinct patterns of settlement expansion.

Imogen Wegman (BA LLB MA) is a PhD candidate at the University of Tasmania. Her thesis explores the use of GIS to examine the early land grants of Van Diemen’s Land. She completed her MA in Landscape History at the University of East Anglia in the U.K.

DRONES FOR NATURAL LANDFORM MAPPING

Dr Stephen Harwin, School of Land and Food, University of Tasmania

Drones (AKA Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)) have become a cost-eﬀective tool for surveying and mapping. UAV photogrammetry using computer vision to create 3D models using hundreds of photographs from a range of angles is becoming increasingly popular for 3D reconstruction surveys. Dr Harwin’s PhD investigated methods for accurately mapping natural landforms using low altitude drone photography. His research has improved our understanding of camera network design, camera calibration, and data processing to support mapping and detecting change in complex landforms. His PhD was the first to robustly assess the accuracy of drone photogrammetry by evaluating survey design considerations (camera network design, camera calibration, and ground control density and distribution). This presentation will describe how drones can be used to provide accurate and complete 3D reconstructions of coastal shoreline, focusing on assessing the accuracy of the drone survey technique to better understand the scale of change that can be detected.

Dr Harwin was recently awarded a PhD in Spatial Science focusing on mapping with drones. He is a researcher with the TerraLuma Drone Research Team (www.terraluma.net). My research focuses on fine scale landform change monitoring with drones, photogrammetry, LiDAR and remote sensing. Dr Harwin is a licensed UAV pilot (multi-rotor and fixed wing). I have over ten years’ experience as a GIS and web mapping specialist and spatial software engineer.

NEW METHOD FOR THE EXTRACTION OF NATURAL PRODUCTS FROM PLANTS

Jeremy Just, School of Physical Sciences.

Plants remain an important source of small organic molecules for chemical synthesis applications. Laboratory equipment for the extraction of these molecules can be expensive, and the techniques time consuming. A standard household espresso machine has been tested and used for the rapid and efficient extraction of plant material. This method has allowed researchers in organic synthesis at the University of Tasmania to isolate complex organic molecules, otherwise unavailable, for use in their research.

Tuesday 6 October, 8.00 pm Royal Society Room, Customs House Building, TMAG,
19 Davey St. Hobart (entry from Dunn Place)
All interested people are welcome
Admission is free

Challenges for hydro development in Papua New Guinea – presentation by David Wilson – Tuesday 1 September 8.00 pm

Challenges for hydro development in Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea is a resource rich country with great reserves of gas, oil and fertile agricultural land as well as an abundance of hydro power potential. However, most regions of Papua New Guinea are still considered remote with access to some of the basic services that we take for granted here in Australia like clean water, transport and electricity still lacking. Little of the riches derived from these resources come to benefit the majority of Papuans. Increasing the availability of affordable electricity to remote communities as well as the swelling populations for urban Port Moresby is one way in which productivity and family livelihood can be advanced. The challenges both technical and social are many. Often the technical challenges relate to geological factors such as earthquake, landslide and foundations conditions, including karstic limestone. Over a period of work in PNG I have encountered such problems, some of which I would like to share in this talk.

David Wilson grew up in Burnie before moving to Hobart in 1973 to undertake tertiary studies at the University of Tasmania. After graduating in 1977 with a Batchelor of Science Honours Degree in Geology/Geophysics David joined Hydro Tasmania as Geophysicist and undertook geophysical and geological studies for potential hydropower projects throughout Tasmania. Much of his work was in remote locations on Tasmania’s West Coast and he spent several years based at Tullah. He returned to Hobart in the early 90’s to pursue a change of career in hydrology, becoming Principal Hydrologist and Business Development Manager, working on many overseas assignments in the Asia-Pacific region as well as other parts of the globe.
Since 2011 David has worked as an independent consultant and has spent time living in Papua New Guinea and Borneo as well as assignments in other countries working on the investigation of various small to medium size hydropower projects.

Tuesday 1 September, 8.00 pm Royal Society Room, Customs House Building, TMAG,
19 Davey St. Hobart (entry from Dunn Place)
All interested people are welcome
Admission is free

Maatsuyker, Deal and Bruny Islands: A Lighthouse Caretaker’s Perspective – Mr John Watts – 27 September 2015

John Watts Retired Metallurgist, voluntary Lighthouse Caretaker will present Maatsuyker, Deal and Bruny Islands – A Lighthouse Caretaker’s Perspective in the Meeting Room, QVMAG at Inveresk 2.00pm Sunday 27th September 2015

Admission: $6 General Public, $4 Friends of the Museum and Students

Free for members of The Royal Society of Tasmania

To assist us with the organization of this event

RSVP by Thursday 24th September 2015:

Email bookings@qvmag.tas.gov.au or telephone 6323 3798

Lighthouses hold a great deal of mysterious fascination for many people, but few seek the opportunity to volunteer to live and work at these often remote, wild and lonely locations. This mystique led John and his wife to apply for such opportunities, and to be accepted as suitable participants. John’s presentation concentrates mainly on their terms in winter and summer at Maatsuyker Island off southern Tasmania, their two experiences as caretakers at Deal Island in Bass Strait, and also, briefly, on two occasions at the Cape Bruny Light-station.

John Watts was born at St Marys, on the east coast of Tasmania, raised in Deloraine, in the central north, and then worked for 38 years (1964-2001) as a metallurgist at Comalco’s aluminium smelters at Bell Bay in northern Tasmania, which included a period (1971-1978) at Tiwai Point in New Zealand. His main roles were either technical in nature, or as a production superintendent, but also included secondments to service, support and systems projects at Bell Bay, Melbourne and Brisbane. Since gratefully accepting a voluntary redundancy in 2001, John and his wife Willemina, have spent considerable voluntary time working on a variety of projects with Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Services, and similar organisations. They are currently very involved with the Low Head Pilot Station Maritime Museum, and have traveled widely in outback and remote Australia.

Jane Franklin – the real founder of The Royal Society of Tasmania by Dr Alison Alexander – Tuesday 4 August 8.00 pm

Jane Franklin: the real founder of the Royal Society of Tasmania by Dr Alison Alexander
Tuesday 4 August, 8.00 pm Royal Society Room, Customs House Building, TMAG,
19 Davey St. Hobart (entry from Dunn Place)
All interested people are welcome
Admission is free
Abstract: Sir John Franklin has always been praised as the real founder of The Royal Society of Tasmania. This lecture argues that the real founder was in fact his wife, Jane Franklin, and shows the enormous work she put into creating and maintaining an unusually erudite society for a small and remote colony.
Alison Alexander was born and educated in Hobart, obtaining a PhD from the University of Tasmania. She has written 27 books of mainly Tasmanian history, including many commissioned works, but also Tasmania’s Convicts: how felons built a free society (2009); The ambitions of Jane Franklin, Victorian lady adventurer (2013) which won the National Biography Award in 2014; and her forthcoming Corruption and Skullduggery: Edward Lord, Maria Riseley and Hobart’s tempestuous beginnings.