Facilities and Resources
A range of resources are available for those students wishing to continue their studies in Geography to Honours level. Some of these resources are utilised for undergraduate teaching, and so students may be familiar with them during the course of their undergraduate studies.
Laboratories
The pollen analysis laboratories include a wet lab for extracting pollen and diatoms from sediments, and a microscope room (the "pollen booth") for identifying and counting pollen and diatoms from slides. A pollen reference collection and diatom library is held by G.E.S.
A laboratory adjacent to the wet lab has a range of equipment used for water quality and related analyses. Equipment includes an atomic absorption spectrophotometer for cation content, an ultraviolet/visible spectrophotometer for anion content, pH and electrical conductivity meters, nephelometers and turbidity meters, plus sediment filtration and separation equipment. A furnace for determining organic matter losses on ignition is also located in this laboratory.
The Soil Lab is located in the Physics building and includes facilities required for soil and sediment analyses. Equipment includes sieve shakers, hydrometers and other equipment required for particle size analyses; two drying ovens; analytical balances; microscopes; and a class set of stereoscopes for aerial photograph interpretation.
Basement laboratories have facilities for palaeo- and mineral magnetism.
In addition the School shares use of a Malvern particle size analyser based in Chemical Engineering and facilities for trace element analysis housed in Earth Sciences. The School is charged for the use of the latter equipment and so approval is necessary.
Aerial photograph and map collections
The School has an extensive collection of aerial photographs that covers the majority of Australia, mostly from the 1960s onwards. The Map Library contains approximately 40,000 Australian and international maps, including topographic and geological series. Both are housed in B45, with some international collections in B09.
Geographic Information System (GIS) facilities
The G.I.S. laboratory (S209) has a set of computers with G.I.S. software packages that include ARC/INFO, ArcView, MapInfo, ER Mapper, Idrisi and Maptitude. Australian Bureau of Statistics data is available on cDATA96. The Victorian Flora Database is available through VIRIDANS. Digital map data sets include VicMap digital topographic, cadastral and road data sets of Victoria; Metropolitan data sets in four themes; AUSLIG 250K Topographic data; and the hydrographic Australian Digital Charts. Limited LANDSAT imagery is available.
Field equipment
A range of equipment exists for geographic field studies, especially in the subject areas of climatology, biogeography, geomorphology and soils. Equipment includes:
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boats, platforms and coring devices for sediment coring (see further details below);
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weather monitoring equipment for meteorological measurements;
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augers, soil kits, spades and other equipment for soil surveys;
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stream analysis equipment and tubing for water column sampling;
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pH, salinity and dissolved oxygen meters;
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an electronic distance measurer, theodolites and staffs, ranging poles, altimeters, clinometers, GPS units (two differential GPS), tapes and compasses for surveying; and trailers and limited camping gear.
Sediment coring can be undertaken using various devices depending on sediment composition and consistence. Coring devices include impact, tube-in-tube, Livingstone, Mackereth and percussion corers. Probes, including sampling probes, are also available. The School owns inflatable boats, an aluminium punt and an Alley Cat 16ft catamaran to assist with sampling.