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  • The hydrocarbon generative potential and the thermal maturity of source rocks in the offshore northern Perth Basin was reassessed based on existing and new geochemical data to get a better understanding of the basin's prospectivity. The study establishes for the first time that the main source of onshore accumulations, the Late Permian-Early Triassic Hovea Member, is well developed offshore and contains organic-rich sediments of oil-prone character. This finding shatters the long-held view that the Hovea Member was either absent or of poor quality offshore and provides a new perspective on the basin's prospectivity. The source potential of the Hovea Member varies spatially with best source rocks observed in the Beagle Ridge and Central Abrolhos Sub-basin. The Late Permian Irwin River Sequence and several Jurassic Sequences are also identified as prime potential source rocks offshore, mostly for their gas-generative potential. Oil-generative potential was identified in the Middle to Late Jurassic Yarragadee Sequence and possibly in the Middle Jurassic Cadda Sequence.

  • <b>Legacy service retired 29/11/2022 IMPORTANT NOTICE:</b> This web service has been deprecated. The Australian Onshore and Offshore Boreholes OGC service at https://services.ga.gov.au/gis/boreholes/ows should now be used for accessing Geoscience Australia borehole data. This is an Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) web service providing access to Australian onshore and offshore borehole data. This web service is intended to complement the borehole GeoSciML-Portrayal v4.0 web service, providing access to the data in a simple, non-standardised structure. The borehole data includes Mineral Drillholes, Petroleum Wells and Water Bores along with a variety of others types. The dataset has been restricted to onshore and offshore Australian boreholes, and bores that have the potential to support geological investigations and assessment of a variety of resources.

  • <b>Legacy service retired 29/11/2022</b> This is an Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) web service providing access to Australian onshore and offshore borehole data conforming to the GeoSciML version 4.0 specification. The borehole data includes Mineral Drillholes, Petroleum Wells and Water Bores along with a variety of others types. The dataset has been restricted to onshore and offshore Australian boreholes, and bores that have the potential to support geological investigations and assessment of a variety of resources.

  • <b>IMPORTANT NOTICE:</b> This web service has been deprecated. The Hydrochemistry Service OGC service at https://services.ga.gov.au/gis/hydrogeochemistry/ows should now be used for accessing Geoscience Australia hydrochemistry analyses data. This is an Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) web service providing access to hydrochemistry data (groundwater analyses) obtained from water samples collected from Australian water bores.

  • <b>Legacy service Retired 29/11/2022 IMPORTANT NOTICE: </b>This web service has been deprecated. The Australian Onshore and Offshore Boreholes OGC service at https://services.ga.gov.au/gis/boreholes/ows should now be used for accessing Geoscience Australia borehole data. This is an Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) web service providing access to Australian onshore and offshore borehole data. This web service is intended to complement the borehole GeoSciML-Portrayal v4.0 web service, providing access to the data in a simple, non-standardised structure. The borehole data includes Mineral Drillholes, Petroleum Wells and Water Bores along with a variety of others types. The dataset has been restricted to onshore and offshore Australian boreholes, and bores that have the potential to support geological investigations and assessment of a variety of resources.

  • This presentation describes source rock data in addition to new compositional and stable isotopic data for 17 oils and six gases from the Amadeus Basin, central Australia. All data was analysed and interpreted by Geoscience Australia. The results of this study provide new insights into the origin and preservational history of hydrocarbons in the basin and provide a platform for future research directions.

  • The Browse Basin, located offshore on Australia's North West Shelf, contains major natural gas accumulations, some of which present high abundances of helium. The basin also contains large quantities of CO2 with some wells containing up to ~18 mol% CO2. Currently there is no information as to the origins of He and CO2 within the Browse Basin, despite this providing important information to the evolution of the natural gas. By understanding where components of the gas originate, it is possible to make predictions about areas that may be high in CO2, which would be problematic for production; conversely areas rich in He could present a second revenue stream from the same well.

  • <b>IMPORTANT NOTICE:</b> This web service has been deprecated. The Australian Onshore and Offshore Boreholes OGC service at https://services.ga.gov.au/gis/boreholes/ows should now be used for accessing Geoscience Australia borehole data. This is an Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) web service providing access to a subset of Australian geoscience samples data held by Geoscience Australia. The subset currently relates specifically to Australian Boreholes.

  • <b>Organic Geochemistry (ORGCHEM) Schema. Australian Source Rock and Fluid Atlas</b> The databases tables held within Geoscience Australia's Oracle Organic Geochemistry (ORGCHEM) Schema, together with other supporting Oracle databases (e.g., Borehole database (BOREHOLE), Australian Stratigraphic Units Database (ASUD), and the Reservoir, Facies and Shows (RESFACS) database), underpin the Australian Source Rock and Fluid Atlas web services and publications. These products provide information in an Australia-wide geological context on organic geochemistry, organic petrology and stable isotope data related primarily to sedimentary rocks and energy (petroleum and hydrogen) sample-based datasets used for the discovery and evaluation of sediment-hosted resources. The sample data provide the spatial distribution of source rocks and their derived petroleum fluids (natural gas and crude oil) taken from boreholes and field sites in onshore and offshore Australian provinces. Sample depth, stratigraphy, analytical methods, and other relevant metadata are also supplied with the analytical results. Sedimentary rocks that contain organic matter are referred to as source rocks (e.g., organic-rich shale, oil shale and coal) and the organic matter within the rock matrix that is insoluble in organic solvents is named kerogen. The data in the ORGCHEM schema are produced by a wide range of destructive analytical techniques conducted on samples submitted by industry under legislative requirements, as well as on samples collected by research projects undertaken by Geoscience Australia, state and territory geological organisations and scientific institutions including the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and universities. Data entered into the database tables are commonly sourced from both the basic and interpretive volumes of well completion reports (WCR) provided by the petroleum well operator to either the state and territory governments or, for offshore wells, to the Commonwealth Government under the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act (OPGGSA) 2006 and previous Petroleum (submerged Lands) Act (PSLA) 1967. Data are also sourced from analyses conducted by Geoscience Australia’s laboratory and its predecessor organisations, the Australian Geological Survey Organisation (AGSO) and the Bureau of Mineral Resources (BMR). Other open file data from company announcements and reports, scientific publications and university theses are captured. The ORGCHEM database was created in 1990 by the BMR in response to industry requests for organic geochemistry data, featuring pyrolysis, vitrinite reflectance and carbon isotopic data (Boreham, 1990). Funding from the Australian Petroleum Cooperative Research Centre (1991–2003) enabled the organic geochemical data to be made publicly available at no cost via the petroleum wells web page from 2002 and included BOREHOLE, ORGCHEM and the Reservoir, Facies and Shows (RESFACS) databases. Investment by the Australian Government in Geoscience Australia’s Exploring for the Future (EFTF) program facilitated technological upgrades and established the current web services (Edwards et al., 2020). The extensive scope of the ORGCHEM schema has led to the development of numerous database tables and web services tailored to visualise the various datasets related to sedimentary rocks, in particular source rocks, crude oils and natural gases within the petroleum systems framework. These web services offer pathways to access the wealth of information contained within the ORGCHEM schema. Web services that facilitate the characterisation of source rocks (and kerogen) comprise data generated from programmed pyrolysis (e.g., Hawk, Rock-Eval, Source Rock Analyser), pyrolysis-gas chromatography (Py-GC) and kinetics analyses, and organic petrological studies (e.g., quantitation of maceral groups and organoclasts, vitrinite reflectance measurements) using reflected light microscopy. Collectively, these data are used to establish the occurrence of source rocks and the post-burial thermal history of sedimentary basins to evaluate the potential for hydrocarbon generation. Other web services provide data to characterise source rock extracts (i.e., solvent extracted organic matter), fluid inclusions and petroleum (e.g., natural gas, crude oil, bitumen) through the reporting of their bulk properties (e.g., API gravity, elemental composition) and molecular composition using gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). Also reported are the stable isotope ratios of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and sulfur using gas chromatography-isotope ratio mass spectrometry (GC-IRMS) and noble gas isotope abundances using ultimate high-resolution variable multicollection mass spectrometry. The stable isotopes of carbon, oxygen and strontium are also reported for sedimentary rocks containing carbonate either within the mineral matrix or in cements. Interpretation of these data enables the characterisation of petroleum source rocks and identification of their derived petroleum fluids, which comprise two key elements of petroleum systems analysis. Understanding a fluid’s physical properties and molecular composition are prerequisites for field development. The composition of petroleum determines its economic value and hence why the concentration of hydrocarbons (methane, wet gases, light and heavy oil) and hydrogen, helium and argon are important relative to those of nitrogen, carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide for gases, and heterocyclic compounds (nitrogen, oxygen or sulfur) found in the asphaltene, resin and polar fractions of crude oils. The web services and tools in the Geoscience Australia Data Discovery Portal (https://portal.ga.gov.au/), and specifically in the Source Rock and Fluid Atlas Persona (https://portal.ga.gov.au/persona/sra), allow the users to search, filter and select data based on various criteria, such as basin, formation, sample type, analysis type, and specific geochemical parameters. The web map services (WMS) and web feature services (WFS) enable the user to download data in a variety of formats (csv, Json, kml and shape file). The Source Rock and Fluid Atlas supports national resource assessments. The focus of the atlas is on the exploration and development of energy resources (i.e., petroleum and hydrogen) and the evaluation of resource commodities (i.e., helium and graphite). Some data held in the ORGCHEM tables are used for enhanced oil recovery and carbon capture, storage and utilisation projects. The objective of the atlas is to empower people to deliver Earth science excellence through data and digital capability. It benefits users who are interested in the exploration and development of Australia's energy resources by: • Providing a comprehensive and reliable source of information on the organic geochemistry of Australian source rocks • Enhancing the understanding of the spatial distribution, quality, and maturity of petroleum source rocks. • Facilitating the mapping of total petroleum and hydrogen systems and the assessment of the petroleum and hydrogen resource potential and prospectivity of Australian basins. • Facilitating the mapping of gases (e.g., methane, helium, carbon dioxide) within the geosphere as part of the transition to clean energy. • Enabling the integration and comparison of data from diverse sources and various acquisition methods, such as geological, geochemical, geophysical and geospatial data. • Providing data for integration into enhanced oil recovery and carbon capture, storage and utilisation projects. • Improving the accessibility and usability of data through user-friendly and interactive web-based interfaces. • Promoting the dissemination and sharing of data among Government, industry and community stakeholders. <b>References</b> Australian Petroleum Cooperative Research Centre (APCRC) 1991-2003. Australian Petroleum CRC (1991 - 2003), viewed 6 May 2024, https://www.eoas.info/bib/ASBS00862.htm and https://www.eoas.info/biogs/A001918b.htm#pub-resources Boreham, C. 1990. ORGCHEM Organic geochemical database. BMR Research Newsletter 13. Record 13:10-10. Geoscience Australia, Canberra. https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/90326 Edwards, D.S., MacFarlane, S., Grosjean, E., Buckler, T., Boreham, C.J., Henson, P., Cherukoori, R., Tracey-Patte, T., van der Wielen, S.E., Ray, J., Raymond, O. 2020. Australian source rocks, fluids and petroleum systems – a new integrated geoscience data discovery portal for maximising data potential. Geoscience Australia, Canberra. http://dx.doi.org/10.11636/133751. <b>Citation</b> Edwards, D., Buckler, T. 2024. Organic Geochemistry (ORGCHEM) Schema. Australian Source Rock and Fluid Atlas. Geoscience Australia, Canberra. https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/149422

  • <div>The Birrindudu Basin is a region of focus for the second phase of the Geoscience Australia’s Exploring for the Future (EFTF) program (2020–2024). The Paleo to Mesoproterozoic Birrindudu Basin is an underexplored frontier basin located in northwestern Northern Territory and northeastern Western Australia. Interpretation of industry seismic data indicates it contains strata of similar age to the prospective McArthur Basin, South Nicholson region and Mount Isa Province, but remains comparatively poorly understood. Furthermore, much of the age of the stratigraphy of the Birrindudu Basin, particularly the younger stratigraphic units, and regional correlations to the greater McArthur Basin remains provisional and speculative.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>This report presents data from Rock-Eval pyrolysis analyses undertaken by Geoscience Australia on selected rock samples to establish their total organic carbon content, hydrocarbon-generating potential and thermal maturity from 178 drill core samples from six drill holes intersecting units of the Birrindudu Basin including: 99VRNTGSDD1, 99VRNTGSDD2, WLMB001B, LBD2, LMDH4, and ANT003. </div><div><br></div>