Regional Variations in Australian Heat Flow

Twenty new heat-flow values from widely separated sites on the Australian continent are presented. The data, combined with published land and marine data, show a low, uniform heat flux (30-60 mW m^-2) across most of the region, with significantly higher values (70-100 mW m^-2) in eastern Australia. These measurements are used to produce contour maps and investigate correlations with seismic parameters.

Use Cases

• Mapping regional geothermal energy potential based on heat-flow values.
• Correlating heat flow with seismic P-wave travel-time residuals to study mantle structure.
• Delineating boundaries of Precambrian cratons where surface outcrop is absent.
• Comparing thermal regimes between geological provinces like the Canning Basin and eastern Australia.

Strengths

• Includes twenty new, continent-wide heat-flow measurements.
• Integrates new data with published land and marine data for broader regional analysis.
• Cross-platform presence on data.gov.au suggests established importance.

Limitations

• The data distribution is described as 'not good enough' to accurately delineate boundaries between high and low heat-flow regimes.
• Key metadata such as column names, row count, license, and author are consistently listed as unknown or None across all sources.
• Conflicting 'last updated' dates (2026-06-23 and 2026-04-04) create uncertainty about data freshness.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Combination of twenty new site measurements with published land and marine data.

Freshness

Last updated dates conflict between 2026-06-23 and 2026-04-04.

Geography

Australian continent and surrounding marine area (90-170°E, 0.45°S).