The GESSS divisional student-run conferences are from a new initiative of the Geological Society of Australia (GSA) that allows Honours, Masters and PhD students to present their research to the local scientific community, to gain experience in communicating their research findings through oral and poster presentations, to promote their talents to future employers, to discover areas of research at other universities, or departments, and to meet new people in the Earth Sciences field.

The inspiration for the GESSS came from the Victorian Division of the Geological Society of Australia (GSA), which has supported the annual Victorian Universities Earth and Environmental Sciences Conference (VUEESC) for the last 30 years at Monash University.

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2017 saw the first GESSS series, successfully held in Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia and Tasmania.

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2018 held the first of the Western Australian GESSS series with the aim to continue the initiative annually and alternate between the host universities; The University of Western Australia and Curtin University.