b'Environmental geophysics Environmental geophysicsMike Hatch Associate Editorfor Environmental geophysics michael.hatch@adelaide.edu.auAEM 2023Welcome readers to this issues column on geophysics applied toFigure 1.AEM central on Fitzroy Island, off the Queensland coast near Cairns.the environment. For this issue, I am reporting to you on my recent attendance at the 8th InternationalOne of the most interesting streamsOn to the winners of the Best Paper and Airborne Electromagnetics Conference:was on First Nations issues, which wasBest Poster. There were so many good officially AEM 2023. It was hard slog,kicked off by an excellent presentationpresentations and posters, but one but I got through it somehow. It wasby Bradley Moggridge from CSIROpresentation was the obvious winnerheld from the 3rd through the 7th ofin Canberra. Bradley is a well-knownSkyTEM for showing their first efforts in Septemberoff the coast of Cairnshydrogeologist working mostly inthe drone AEM spaceits like the big on Fitzroy Island. Now lets not get toothe freshwater lake space. His talkShiraz at a wine tastingnobody gets far ahead of ourselves here, a) it wasreally emphasised the (ethical, ifpast this one. Figure 3 is a shot of the hard work and b) it was actually thenot always strictly legal) need toprototype drone that is being developed perfect place for a dedicated workshop.make First Nations Peoples part offor their programme by ACC Innovation The ~95 attendees ate breakfast, lunchthe design and implementationfrom Sweden. Bigger than any civilian and dinner (along with a few rounds ofof geophysical surveys. Maiwenndrone Ive ever seen, it is petrol powered, beverages) cheek-by-jowl for four fullHerpe from the GNS in New Zealandand will eventually have a two- to three-days, with no place else to get away(roughly the equivalent of the CSIROhour range, flying 6 to 8 m off the deck. from AEM but up the local mountainhere in Australia) presented the effortIf you ask me, its got potential to be the for a view from the lighthouse, or offthat the GNS has made along theseultimate in near-surface EM geophysics. to Nudey Beach (not so nude): aboutlines, most impressive, but they haveYes, there will be issues getting that big a a 3 km hike from AEM central (i.e., thebeen working on this issue (mostlydrone to fly legally in many jurisdictions, local resort hotelFigure1). There weresuccessfully?) for more than a century.but we can always hope (and write 49 talks and 11 posters, all presentedPaul Bedrosian presented on whatsupport letters to the appropriate in a single stream from about 9:00 tohas been happening in the USA. Andministers when the time comes).16:00 or 16:30 each day. AttendanceYusen Ley Cooper presented on what to all sessions was really goodrightGeoscience Australia (specifically the to the end - and even the morningAusEM programme, i.e., the AEM survey after the conference dinner (truthIthat will eventually cover the entire wouldnt lie to you). Figure 2 shows thecountry) has done in this space. They international affiliation of the attendees(GA) have some fantastic cartooninterestingly, Aussies sit at underresources available for anyone to 50% of attendees, so a really gooddownload (https://www.eftf.ga.gov.international mix of attendees. Hardau/how-airborne-electromagnetic-work, but somebody had to do it. aem-surveys-work and https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0jP_ahe-Slightly more seriously, this was aBFkwzlNgRTR-sWDq5ZMDAtu8). I fantastic collaboration effort betweenhadnt appreciated it but they do these the ASEG and CSIRO to put together thisin multiple (western and Aboriginal conference. And is just the sort of showlanguages) and cover much of the that reminded me of ASEG conferencesgeological/geophysical explorationFigure 2.The International mix of the ~95 of old - more on that later. space with them. international attendees at AEM 2023.29 PREVIEW OCTOBER 2023'