SPC Geoscience Division

Delegations from Pacific governments, along with international donors and prominent scientific organisations will meet in the Cook Islands during the second week of October to investigate and discuss aspects of mineral resources development in the Pacific region.

This will be during the Third meeting of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community's (SPC) Applied Geoscience and Technology Division (SOPAC), whose running theme will be 'Opportunities and challenges of developing natural resources in large ocean states'.

The meeting will be held in conjunction with the 2013 Circum-Pacific Council (CPC) meeting, along with 2013 STAR* (Science, Technology and Resources Network) Session.

Professor Michael Petterson, SOPAC Division Director, expressed his gratitude to the Cook Islands Government for hosting the meetings, and further added that 'As a new Director attending my first Divisional meeting, I am very excited to be able to meet and discuss one of the key aspects of development for the Pacific: sustainably and inclusively developing mineral resources. The advent of Deep Sea Minerals could bring many changes to the Pacific and we all need to prepare and be informed. I will also be presenting my new vision for where I would like to take SOPAC Division during my tenureship. Let us also not forget STAR and the very last year of it's chair, Professor John Collen who has, again, produced a very exciting programme for us to learn from and contribute to. I look forward to seeing everybody and extend a very warm welcome.'

Circum-Pacific Council is an association of earth scientists, engineers, and oceanographers in the Pacific region, while STAR was founded in 1985 to facilitate the continuing provision of advice to SOPAC by the international geoscience community.

The main theme of the STAR Conference is 'Large ocean states: challenges, opportunities and risks in developing non-living marine and onland natural resources', and papers on renewable energy and deep sea minerals will be presented.

For further information, please go to: http://www.sopac.org/index.php/sopac-3

Thursday 19 September 2013, Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), Suva, Fiji – On 19 September, guest lecturer Dr. Tom Durrant of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology presented his wave modelling research to students at USP Marine Science Campus. This new research provides a better understanding of ocean wave movements across the Pacific and will be used by SPC’s Applied Geoscience and Technology (SOPAC) Division to enhance development planning and disaster management in the region.

According to Durrant, “Waves and wave climate have significant implications for coastal security, marine resources, and alternative energy options. Waves on the ocean, Durrant explained, range in period from tidal waves, with periods of 12 and 24 hours, to Tsunamis, with periods around 15 minutes, to wind driven waves with periods of around 2 to 20 seconds.

In the case of wind driven waves, the focus of Durrant's work,  the longer the wind blows over a greater area, the bigger the waves. Pacific Islands are affected not only by local, short period, wind-generated waves but also by long period swells generated by far away storms.

Long period swell waves are fast-moving waves caused by distant storms that can pile up when they reach land. Such waves have caused widespread flooding, damage and loss of life in the Pacific, for example, in the Mortlock Islands of Papua New Guinea in 2009 and in the Marshall Islands in 2012. “These events haven’t been studied much because of lack of data,” said Durrant.

To this end, Durrant has been working under the AusAid-funded Pacific and Australia Climate Change Science and Adaptation Planning (PACCSAP) Programme to develop wave models for the Pacific that can in turn be used to assess wave-induced coastal inundation events in detail.