National Library of Australia - Gateways

ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 59| October 2002


30th Annual Australian Map Circle Conference

The dry warmth of a northern Australian winter greeted about 40 participants to the 2002 Australian Map Circle (AMC) annual conference when they arrived at the Cairns campus of James Cook University.

The conference theme, Mapping Frontiers, in the context of political boundaries, historical explorations and new knowledge, provided one of the best AMC conferences for many years. The papers presented at the three-day conference represented a good balance between well-established researchers in traditional fields of historical cartography and younger researchers utilising Geographic Information System (GIS) technology.

Speleologist, Professor David Gillieson presented the keynote lecture ‘Mapping Frontiers Beneath the Earth’ in which he traced the history of cave exploration and mapping, particularly in Australia, with the use of computer software to develop three-dimensional mapping; an approach which provides a more realistic interpretation of cave systems.

Papers presented at the conference ranged from a comparison of enclaves in Baarle, the Netherlands to those along the northern Indo-Bangladesh border, Native Title rights to the sea in Australia, to current mapping trends and technology, and the identification of potential underwater archaeological sites in Port Phillip Bay.

The Estelle Canning Memorial prize, initiated by two members of the Circle in 2000, was awarded to Ross Thomas for his passionate discussion and illustration of the professional career of government geologist Robert Logan Jack. Jack was responsible for some of the earliest geological surveys throughout Queensland during the latter part of the nineteenth century. He died in obscurity in Sydney, in 1921.

Conference goers were also treated to a small display of early thematic maps from the collection of the Cairns Historical Society and a visit to the naval base HMAS Cairns and the survey ship HMAS Whyalla.

Next year’s conference will be held at Macquarie University, Sydney, 2–5 February 2003 with the theme Landscapes on Paper: Mapping Today and Yesterday and for 2004, Hamilton, New Zealand is being considered.
—Maura O’Connor

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