Since the publication in 1967 of the monograph on the marine geology of the Timor Sea,1 the Bureau of Mineral Resources has initiated a program of systematic reconnaissance geological surveys of the continental shelf. The results of this work are being published in the BMR Bulletin series accompanied by 1:1 000 000 lithofacies maps of the shelf sediments. Three sheets (Rowley Shoals, W.A.2; Scott Reef, W.A.2 ; and Arafura Sea, N.T.8 ) have been printed by early 1974, and work on two further sheets covering part of the east Australian continental shelf is well advanced. Users of the map should refer to Bulletin 83 (GeoCat # 163) to assist in interpretation. For instance, wide areas of the shelf are non-depositional, or even subject to erosion, and therefore the variations in lithology portrayed are not exclusively the result of variations in the modern depositional regime. Also the map does not distinguish sediments which are relics of earlier regimes from modern ones; however, some information of the distribution of these older sediments can be obtained from Bulletin 83 (GeoCat # 163) and inferred from a study of the gravel content in relation to the bathymetry.