The GeoQuEST Research CentreThe GeoQuEST Research Centre in the UOW's School of Earth and Environmental Sciences brings together outstanding researchers in Geography, Geology and Environmental Science. They share central interests in Earth processes, environmental change and the interaction of humans with, and impact on, the landscape, fauna and flora. 
Their research covers a broad range of areas including urban, coastal, coral reef, fluvial and aeolian environments. The Centre has an international reputation for the quality of its people and facilities and provides a wide range of research and consulting services, working on scales from local to global. GeoQuEST Coordinator during 2004 Professor Lesley Head specialises in Australian prehistory and environmental change, cultural landscapes, as well as past and present Aboriginal land use. Professor Head will be heading to Sweden as King Carl XVI Gustaf visiting Professor-ship in Environmental Science in August, 2005. Professor Colin Woodroffe, a leading authority in Coastal Geomorphology and GIS will assume leadership of GeoQuest. The Centre's other academic staff and research students have expertise in:
- Remote Sensing and Geographical Information Systems (GIS) Applications
- Geochronology
- Sedimentology and Stratigraphy
- Geomorphology
- Social and Cultural Change
- International Migration
- Geochemistry
- Palaeoceanography
- Estuarine Science and Management
- Quaternary Environmental Change
- Coastal Evolution and Processes
- Australian Prehistory
- Petrology
- Pollution Studies
- Environmental Management.
GeoQuEST Consulting offers a broad range of services executed by the Centre'sexperts using the best technologies available. Services range from thermoluminescence and optical dating, to drilling and coring, GIS analysis, aerial photography and map interpretation, and environmental management. 'HOBBIT' DISCOVERY REVERBERATES AROUND THE WORLD  Australian and Indonesian archaeologists who found the previously undiscovered species of small human on the Indonesian island of Flores were able to determine when these little people walked the Earth, thanks to the worldclass dating work by GeoQuEST scientists from the University of Wollongong .
The discovery was reported by the British weekly scientific journal Nature in October 2004, and created a sensation that reverberated around the world. The Nature report raised images of a lost world of "little people" that co-existed with modern humans until relatively recently. The scientists discovered a skeleton of a one-metre tall female aged around 30 during an archaeological dig in Liang Bua, a large limestone cave on Flores, 600 km east of Bali. They subsequently found other skeletal remains in the cave. A dating team led by University of Wollongong (UOW) geochronologist Professor Richard 'Bert' Roberts from the GeoQuEST Research Centre used a variety of techniques including radiocarbon, luminescence, uranium-series and electron spin resonance to show that the skeleton was around 18,000 years old. The remains of a further seven individuals who lived in the cave from about 95,000 to 13,000 years ago have also been found. The skeleton, nicknamed 'Hobbit' by the excavation team, is now the type specimen for a new human species Homo
floresiensis - hailed as one of the most significant palaeoanthropological discoveries in a century. The Indonesian-Australian excavation team was led by archaeologists Professors Mike Morwood from the University of New England and R.P. Soejono from the Indonesian Research Centre for Archaeology, while the UOW GeoQuEST team of Prof Roberts, Dr Chris Turney and and PhD researcher Kira Westaway provided its expertise in dating techniques. 
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