b'Environmental geophysics Environmental geophysicsGeophysics towed EM-system) is lookingPretty specialised, but for those of to move into the backpack-EM space. Allus interested in resolving as much as good - maybe once all are up and runningpossible in the shallow civil engineering we will need someone to do a studyspace or root-zone studies, this sounds comparing these similar but differentlike a useful improvement.systems (and then include Groundwater Imagings AgTEM and Zonges NanoTEMIn addition, I heard that one of the and ???). Now that would be interesting. highlights of the show was Yusen Ley-Coopers presentation on the AusEM I was intrigued to hear that there wasTEM not-quite-complete-coverage increased interest in the applicationof Australia, especially over WA and of near surface geophysics in minethe NT. I got Yusen to send me an developmentI am thinking that someupdated image of the coverage (see Mike Hatchof that may be due to Andrew DuncansFigure 1). He also sent me a link to Alex Associate Editor talk on Loupe, but may also be due toZhans report on the interpretation for Environmental geophysicstalks like that by Chris Wijns, who isof the AEM surveying in WA (https://michael.hatch@adelaide.edu.au working in the laterite resource space. dmpbookshop.eruditetechnologies.com.I heard that the talks on passive seismic,au/product/airborne-electromagnetic-and specifically (toward the very deepsurvey-northern-western-australia-an-The AEGC that was end) the ambient noise tomographyintegrated-interpretation-of-selected-were excellent. features.do), which is the long version of Welcome readers to this issues column onthe interesting talk that he gave on the geophysics applied to the environment.I was also told that Anton Kepics talksubject during the conference.For this issue, my intention was to reviewon soil radiometry was interesting. the just-past Australian ExplorationAnton presented a way to measure notAnd finally, I got some interesting Geoscience Conference (AEGC) inonly the usual K, U and Th from gammafeedback from Mick Micenko (see his Brisbane. Alas alack, by the time I wasradiometric data but also Fe, as well ascolumn in this issue of Preview) on Tim ready to head to the show on Tuesdayan estimate of soil density in the topDeans talk, Nuclear weapons as a seismic morning, I had twinged my back and0.2 m Apparently, this is all achievedsource. He informs me that for his MSc my doctor told me that I shouldnt getby processing the existing data in anthesis, way back when (code for: hes on a plane. Ultimately, the NMR scansimproved way. getting older too), he was processing (otherwise known as MRIs) merely showedseismological data to model rift structure, that I was getting olderi.e. a pinchedFurther, apparently Geonics has justand at the time large explosions sourced nerve. Now (two weeks later at the timeput out a four-spacing version of theirin Central Asia made excellent sources that this was written) my back is justshallowest EM tool, the EM38so new much cleaner, with less ambiguous starting to feel better. So, I didnt attendthat I couldnt find it on their website.timing than the natural stuff.and was left with the question: what do for this column? Well, I checked in with a few of my contacts with expertise in the shallower side of geophysics (i.e. where I like to work) to see what their thoughts were on the conference. So, based on their input, I think Ive got a pretty good feel for how things went.First off, congratulations to Andrew Duncan and Greg Street as co-winners of the Grahame Sands Award for the development of the Loupe EM systemwhich, as many of you will know, is one of my favourite toys, sorry, tools. Well done to both. I also have it on good advice that Andrews presentation on use of the Loupe system for shallow exploration and in the near-mine environment was very gooda compliment from one of your competitors Andrew ;).A few of my contacts commented that there was some interesting convergence in the shallow EM space as well. Seems that Loupe is looking to expand into theFigure 1.The main image is the 2023 image of AUSEM coverage over Australia. The 2019 WA/NT data set towed-EM space, and TTEM (the Aarhusimage is shown for comparison.APRIL 2023 PREVIEW 38'