Hey Thea-
I am a graduate student in Geophysics. The conference is the International Coastal Symposium which is being hosted by Griffith University. The work I am doing now is on the role of oil and gas production on subsidence in southern Louisiana (and yes, we had actually started working on this before Hurricaine Katrina last year).

Thanks for the offer to show me around ANU and Canberra, but I don't think that I will make it to Canberra on this trip.

I am having fun planning what I am going to do in Tassie though.

I am sure I will be back with more specific questions as the trip gets closer, right now I am just really paranoid about having to drive on the "wrong" side of the road when I am in Tassie... I am sure that it will be fine, but when I was in New Zealand and was the passanger in a car on a really windey road I just about jumped out of the car when another car came around the corner on what I thought was the wrong side Made my friend who was driving laugh histarically...

Thanks for the input you all, these boards are great!
Ellen