All research projects

The Western Australian Museum is currently undertaking five projects relating to arachnid and myriapod research:

• Systematics of various spider families (e.g. Oonopidae, Lycosidae, Araneidae, Archaeidae, Salticidae, Selenopidae, and various trap-door spiders)
• Systematics of pseudoscorpions
• Systematics of schizomids
• Systematics of millipedes
• Systematics of subterranean fauna.

The Western Australian Museum is currently undertaking two research projects relating to Subterranean Biology:

• Anchialine systems of NW Shelf coast and Christmas Island
• Subterranean biology of Yilgarn calcretes.

The Online Zoological Collections of Australian Museums (OZCAM) is an online distributed network of Australian faunal databases that contain information about the faunal collections held in Australian museums and other institutions, such as CSIRO. The Western Australian Museum supplies information to OZCAM. www.ozcam.org.au

The documentary unit was a Western Australian Museum service run by Clay Bryce within the Aquatic Zoology department. It focused on development of digital media (documentaries, information programs, shorts), which popularised the science of the department and the Museum as a whole for both domestic and international markets. To date over 13 programs have been produced including a 90 minute co-production feature, 60 minute documentaries and shorter programs. Some of the documentaries produced by this unit can be viewed on the video page of this website.

The Aquatic Zoology department is currently undertaking a research project that is jointly funded between the Western Australian Museum and Woodside Energy Limited.

This study consists of statistically analysing major data sets to compare various marine faunal groups with habitats of the Kimberley coastal region and documenting their relationships. This project consists of four components:

The Aquatic Zoology department is currently undertaking a continual research study where regular contracts with mining companies and environmental consultancies for Environmental Impact Assessment Surveys result in numerous terrestrial mollusc sampled added into the Museum collections. Data and samples, sometimes of previously unknown species, builds on our knowledge of species’ distributional ranges, ecology and biology and provides the basis for future taxonomic research.

The Aquatic Zoology department is currently participating in a research project funded by CSIRO Tasmania with the collaboration of various scientific institutions including the Western Australian Museum.

One of the purposes of this project was to document the benthic (the ecological region at the lowest level of a body of water) faunal biodiversity in Commonwealth waters. The Western Australian Museum participated in surveying waters off the Western Australian coastline. Two voyages were undertaken:

Earth and Planetary sciences are currently performing research on the following areas referring to minerals:

• Analysis and description of new meteorites found in Western Australia
• Recovery of observed meteorite falls from the Nullarbor Region using the Desert Fireball Camera Network in collaboration with Imperial College, London and the Ondrejov Observatory, Prague, Czech Republic.

Staff are part of a consortium of agencies, led by CSIRO, that were successful in obtaining MERIWA funding for the research project “Application of U-Th-Pb-He Double-Dating Techniques to Diamond Exploration” (MERIWA project M405).

Anthropology and Archaeology are currently performing research on the following areas referring to Archaeology:

• Resin on excavated stone tools from the Esperance area
• Traditional maritime economies in the south-west Kimberley
• Old Perth Gaol excavated materials
• Geophysical detection of historic graves

Anthropology and Archaeology are currently performing research on the following areas referring to Ancient Egypt:

• Honorary Associates – one working at Abydos with the Michigan University ancient cemeteries project and one with Macquarie University at Thebes
• Current collection focus: analysing botanical remains stored in a sycamore box, part of the collections since the 1890s.

The History department's collections-based research projects include:

The History department is currently undertaking research of the social, cultural and environmental history of the Kalgoorlie-Boulder goldfields. This research will be used to create an exhibition redevelopment project due to open in late 2010.

The Maritime History department is currently undertaking research projects focusing on maritime history artworks. Specifically, they aim to document the artworks and research the history of the artists.

The Maritime History department is currently undertaking research projects focussing on marine engines and technology, including:

• Marine Engineers’ Oral History Program.
• Maritime History and McLean Museum and Art Gallery project looking at connections between Fremantle and Greenock.

The Maritime History department is currently undertaking research projects focussing on immigration and migration, this includes:

• Shipping movements associated with Western Australian immigration and migration
• Immigrant and migrant experiences in maritime industries and the maritime history of Western Australia.

The Maritime Archaeology department undertook archaeological survey work on the Albany foreshore for Landcorp in 1994.

This included extensive underwater archaeological surveys, test-pits and excavations underneath and to the east of the Town Jetty. In 2007, the Environmental Protection Authority required a further Environmental Impact Assessment to incorporate the modified foreshore development plan.

The Maritime Archaeology department undertook a research project to analyse the human skeletal remains associated with the Batavia mutiny of 1629.

The wrecking of the Batavia and the ensuing massacre is well documented in both Australian non-fiction and scientific literature. The location of the massacre is one of Australia's earliest known European archaeological sites, having occurred well before European colonisation.

In February 2009, the department of Maritime Archaeology undertook a remote-sensing survey of Geographe Bay in Western Australia. The main objective of this fieldwork was the search for the US whalers Governor Endicott (1840) and Halycon (1844).

No promising sites were found in the search area for these two US whalers; it is believed that modern boat moorings are in the area of the wrecks that would mask any likely targets.

The Maritime Archaeology department is involved in a Commonwealth funded desktop project to identify shipwrecks for the proposed National Heritage Listing of the Kimberley.

In 1993, the Australian Government declared a nation-wide amnesty calling for members of the public with any historic shipwreck relic or knowledge of an undiscovered historic wreck to report these without fear of prosecution.

As a result, some 20,000 artefacts were declared and about 30 'new' sites reported across Australia. Western Australia received the highest number of artefacts declared. Some of these were donated to the WA Museum while others were retained in private custody.

The Maritime Archaeology department was deeply involved in the discovery of the HMAS Sydney and HSK Kormoran. The WA Museum has since launched an online exhibition and educational portal based on the discovery of these wrecks and the story of the battle.

HMAS Sydney and HSK Kormoran were located in March 2008. Since 1981 the WA Museum has performed an important role in leading Government and the various searchers towards finding the wrecks’ location.

In September 2010, a team comprising members of the WA Museum’s Earth and Planetary Sciences Department; London’s Natural History Museum, Imperial College London and Germany’s Münster University headed out to the Nullarbor in search of meteorites. This was no ordinary meteorite search, but part of the ongoing cooperative of the “Desert Fireball Network” that utilises a number of cameras spread across the Nullarbor to record meteorite fireballs as they fall to Earth. Once identified by the camera system, field-crews head out to locate the falls.