Blog

Multi-beam echo sounder image of SS Macumba. Image: CSIRO/Marine National Facility.

High-tech wreck hunting on board the RV Investigator

05 Apr 2019

RV Investigator uses the latest technology to survey, record and analyse the coast and waters of Australia, including searching for shipwrecks.

Johann and Katharina Emmelhainz on the Beulah passenger list, 1849. Courtesy NSW State Archives Reel 2145, [4/4820].

Vinedressers and vintners

04 Apr 2019

On 4 April 1849, the three-masted bounty ship Beulah arrived in Sydney with 180 immigrants from the heart of German wine country.

A hammerhead shark. Image: EXTREME-PHOTOGRAPHER via istock.

So you think you know a thing or two about sharks

03 Apr 2019

Do sharks like jazz music? Do they feel pain? Meet Dr Catarina Vila-Pouca. She is researching the connection between cognition and shark behavioural ecology.

Sailors' weather lore - myth or meterology? Image: moisseyev/istock.

Red sky at night, sailor's delight?

23 Mar 2019

Sailors' weather lore — myth or meteorology? When European sailors began arriving on Australian shores, they brought with them a host of sayings about the weather. What truth was there in these, and were any of them relevant to conditions in the southern hemisphere?

Johanna Goggins is one of the Irish famine orphans who is inscribed on the Welcome Wall. Image: Kim Tao/ANMM.

Remembering the Irish famine orphans

17 Mar 2019

Today some 80 million people worldwide claim Irish ancestry, including an estimated seven million Australians. For St Patrick’s Day, we take a look at the story of the destitute Irish orphans who arrived in Australia 170 years ago at the height of the Great Famine.

Piecing together a 200 million year puzzle. Image: MNF/CSIRO

Investigating a rocky relationship

15 Mar 2019

Australia is surrounded by deep, mysterious oceans. The RV Investigator to explores these depths. But who is conducting the groundbreaking science on board? Enter Dr Joanne Whittaker, marine geophysicist, and Dr Rebecca Carey, volcanologist. Together they are gathering data to unlock the ancient history of the sea floor...

When going to the beach required pyjamas

11 Mar 2019

There's a reason people are still so fascinated with the art deco style of the 1920s and 1930s... Take these stylish 'beach pyjamas' from the museum's archives, for example. Why make a trip to the seaside looking drab when you could look fabulous?

: The author (right) and Irini Malliaros from the Silentworld Foundation use ‘old school’ methods to obtain measurements of the Admiralty Old Pattern Long-Shanked Anchor found in the shallows at Boot Reef. Image: Julia Sumerling/Silentworld Foundation.

An anchor’s secrets revealed

07 Mar 2019

In December last year, maritime archaeologists and researchers from the museum and the Silentworld Foundation conducted a shipwreck survey of Boot Reef in the Coral Sea. While searching for the wreck of the Lancashire Lass, they also discovered something at the end of a large, long chain...

Conducting the photogrammetry survey of M24, using underwater lights. Image: Steve Trewavas.

Recording M24, the Japanese midget submarine

05 Mar 2019

For over 60 years a Japanese midget submarine lay in the waters off Newport, on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. In 2017 a high resolution 3D model of M24 was produced, providing an unprecedented level of detail of the wreck. We spoke to the team leader, maritime archaeologist Matt Carter, about this exciting project.