Legacy product - no abstract available

1. Blevin et al.:Hydrocarbon prospectivity of the Bight Basin - petroleum systems analysis in a frontier basin 2. Boreham et al : Geochemical Comparisons Between Asphaltites on the Southern Australian Margin and Cretaceous Source Rock Analogues 3. Brown et al: Anomalous Tectonic Subsidence of the Southern Australian Passive Margin: Response to Cretaceous Dynamic Topography or Differential Lithospheric Stretching? 4. Krassay and Totterdell : Seismic stratigraphy of a large, Cretaceous shelf-margin delta complex, offshore southern Australia 5. Ruble et al : Geochemistry and Charge History of a Palaeo-Oil Column: Jerboa-1, Eyre Sub-Basin, Great Australian Bight 6. Struckmeyer et al : Character, Maturity and Distribution of Potential Cretaceous Oil Source Rocks in the Ceduna Sub-Basin, Bight Basin, Great Australian Bight 7. Struckmeyer et al: The role of shale deformation and growth faulting in the Late Cretaceous evolution of the Bight Basin, offshore southern Australia 8. Totterdell et al : A new sequence framework for the Great Australian Bight: starting with a clean slate 9. Totterdell and Bradshaw : The structural framework and tectonic evolution of the Bight Basin 10. Totterdell and Krassay : The role of shale deformation and growth faulting in the Late Cretaceous evolution of the Bight Basin, offshore southern Australia

The extreme variation in the natural endowment of petroleum resources between regions has been a key geo-political driver in the last century and may well remain so in the decades ahead. Most of the world?s oil is located in a latitudinal belt lying predominantly north of the equator, running from the Gulf of Mexico and Venezuela, to North Africa, through the Middle East, the Caspian and Central Asia and down to Indonesia. Klemme and Ulmishek (1991) calculated that this Tethyan Petroleum Province contained 68% of global original petroleum reserves. Its vast petroleum resources were derived largely from the organic rich marine rocks deposited in low latitude in restricted basins and on shallow carbonate shelves flanking the various Palaeozoic, Mesozoic and Cainozoic incarnations of the east-west orientated Tethys Ocean.

This data set contains information on Oil and Gas pipeline infrastructure. This dataset has been converted from Microstation format used in a map "Petroleum Exploration and Development Titles" published annually in APRIL. Attributes have been added to comply with data standards and minor coding of line work has been achieved using annotation from the map. Further data has been added, specifically for the specific Acreage Release Areas.

A comprehensive black and white teachers' guide reviews the history and development of the United Nation's Convention on the Law of the Sea and its application to Australian marine jurisdiction. Case studies on the North West Shelf, Antarctica and Orange Roughy are included. 108 page booklet with student activities and suggested answers. Suitable for secondary geography and science students Years 8-12.

Legacy product - no abstract available

The offshore Gippsland Basin is Australia's major producing hydrocarbon province. Acreage has historically been tightly held, and opportunities for new players in this highly prospective basin have been limited. However, recent relinquishments have allowed the Australian Federal and Victorian State Governments to offer three potential permits to petroleum exploration companies and consortia. The Bureau of Mineral Resources Petroleum Group, in collaboration with the Victorian Department of Manufacturing and Industry Development's Petroleum Branch, has produced a hydrocarbon prospectivity package for the Southeast Gippsland Basin, with particular emphasis on the three areas to be released. The package takes the form of this BMR Record 1991/9. The Package covers regional geology, geophysics, palaeogeography, and hydrocarbon play concepts, together with a new structural interpretation for the Gippsland Basin developed at BMR. In addition, for each release area the package covers previous exploration, local geology and play concepts, reservoir geology and engineering, and geohistory. Prospects and leads are described in detail, and the text is complemented by some 80 Plates and Figures.

Petroleum accumulations have been discovered in the Bonaparte, Browse and Carnarvon basins over the last fifty years. However, a regional synthesis of the geochemistry of these North West Shelf hydrocarbons has not been published. To address this, this study documents the biomarker and isotopic analyses of ~300 North West Shelf oils/condensate samples that have been statistically characterised into genetically related families. Carbon and hydrogen isotopic signatures of ~50 gas samples, together with existing molecular data for ~1000 gas samples, show regional trends in wetness and abundance of non-combustible gases. These petroleum accumulations can be attributed to source rocks of Early Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic and Early Cretaceous age; however, most economic oil and gas accumulations are sourced from Mesozoic (Triassic Jurassic) sediments. The oils produced from the Bonaparte (Vulcan Sub-basin, northern Bonaparte) and Carnarvon (Dampier, Barrow and Exmouth sub-basins) basins are geochemically similar, being sourced from Late Jurassic marine rift-fill sediments (lower Vulcan Formation/Dingo Claystone) that contain variable amounts of terrigenous (particularly gymnosperm-derived) organic matter. Variations in their biomarker signatures can be explained by maturity differences, multiple charging and secondary alteration processes. Gas produced from the northern Rankin Platform is predominantly sourced from Triassic Jurassic fluvio-deltaic sediments. Proven and potential supergiant and giant gas accumulations occur in the deepwater areas of the North West Shelf. Case studies focussing on the geochemistry of the outer Browse (Scott Reef trend) and Carnarvon (deepwater Exmouth Plateau and Rankin Platform) gas accumulations will be presented with emphasis on d13C and d2H isotopic data.

An inverted phase (polar to non-polar) column set has been compared with a non-polar to polar column set for the GC-GC separation of petroleum hydrocarbons crude oil. This is shown to provide greatly enhanced resolution for less polar compounds and makes greater use of the two-dimensional separation space. This column configuration improves resolution of a greater number of components within one analysis and offers new possibilities for crude oil fingerprinting.

Exploration for Unconventional Hydrocarbons in Australia reached a new milestone when Beach Energy announced the first successful flow test of a shale gas target in the Cooper Basin. The ever expanding coal seam gas industry on Australia's east coast in addition to the large resource potential of shale and tight gas in Australia's eastern basins has put Australia firmly on the radar of many local and international exploration companies. Over the next 12 months Geoscience Australia in collaboration with its counterparts in the State and Territory resource and energy departments will begin an assessment of Australia's coal seam gas, shale gas and oil and tight gas resource potential. Capitalising on decades of high quality geological data held by the Commonwealth and the States and Territories, the aim of this collaboration is to develop nationally consistent assessment methodologies and provide robust national resource estimates in an internationally accepted standard. Overall, the programme aims to answer the 'where' and 'how much' questions for government, as well as provide this new industry with pre-competitive data and tools for comparing exploration opportunities. The immediate goal is to provide a first-pass, high level estimate of the likely resource volumes, which will be reported in the second edition of the Australian Energy Resource Assessment (published by RET). The longer term work program aims to assess Australia's onshore basins in terms of their resource potential and provide pre-competitive data to industry. To achieve this, several geological techniques will be applied including, but not limited to, geochemical screening, mapping of source rock occurrences and their distributions as well as physical rock property studies.