In mid 2011, the Australian Government announced funding of a new four year National CO2 Infrastructure Plan (NCIP) to accelerate the identification and development of sites suitable for the long term storage of CO2 in Australia that are within reasonable distances of major energy and industrial CO2 emission sources. The NCIP program promotes pre-competitive storage exploration and provides a basis for the development of transport and storage infrastructure. The Plan follows on from recommendations of the Carbon Storage Taskforce and the National CCS Council (formerly, the National Low Emissions Coal Council). It builds on the work funded under the National Low Emissions Coal Initiative and the need for adequate storage to be identified as a national priority. Geoscience Australia is providing strategic advice in delivering the plan and will lead in the acquisition of pre-competitive data and geological studies to assess storage potential. Four offshore sedimentary basins (Bonaparte, Browse, Perth and Gippsland basins) and several onshore basins have been identified for pre-competitive data acquisition and study.

The Great Artesian Basin Water Resource Assessment (GABWRA) provided fundamental underpinning information for the Great Artesian Basin (GAB). Key data sets produced by GABWRA include contact surfaces between major aquifers and aquitards within the GAB. This poster covers the 3D visualisation of these surfaces in GOCAD (R) and in the Geoscience Australia World Wind 3D data viewer. Poster prepared for the International Association of Hydrogeologists congress 2013, Perth, Australia

To follow

Four posters describing work being undertaken in Antarctica: VULNERABLE MARINE ECOSYSTEMS IN ANTARCTICA SEABED MAPPING IN ANTARCTICA DEFINING ABSOLUTE GRAVITY AN ANTARCTIC GEODESY

Displayed at Questacon July 21-22

The Canning Basin in northwestern Australia covers an area of over 506,000 sq. km, of which 430,000 sq. km are onshore. The maximum sediment thickness is over 15,000 m, concentrated in two north-west trending depocentres: the Fitzroy Trough - Gregory Sub-basin complex and the Willara Sub-basin - Kidson Sub-basin complex. Onshore sediments range in age from the Early Ordovician to Early Cretaceous while those in the offshore portion of the basin are mostly Triassic to Neogene. Though it is largely covered by onshore petroleum tenements, much of the basin is underexplored. Conventional hydrocarbons have been produced from Devonian carbonates (Blina) and Carboniferous sandstones (Boundary, Lloyd, Point Torment, Sundown, West Kora and West Terrace), with many shows in Ordovician to Permian rocks. The recent Ungani-1 well flowed oil from the Laurel Formation, while in 1967 Yulleroo-1 flowed gas from the same unit. The basin's source rocks have recently been attracting exploration attention for their unconventional hydrocarbon resources. Prospective units include the Ordovician Goldwyer and Bongabinni formations, and the Mississippian Laurel Formation. A new International Geological Timescale (Gradstein et al. 2012) has resulted in changes to the age and duration of most chronological stages. This has implications for the interpreted ages and durations of Canning Basin sedimentary units, with potential ramifications for petroleum modelling. This poster presents an updated biozonation and stratigraphy chart for the Canning Basin, reflecting the 2012 timescale. This provides a baseline for an assessment of the unconventional hydrocarbon potential of the basin, which will be conducted by Geoscience Australia.

A satellite image poster that gives a view of the city of Canberra and the surrounding countryside. Derived by merging datasets from the Landsat Thematic Mapper and SPOT satellites which periodically pass over Australia, the poster provides a wealth of information as well as a pleasing visual image.

Poster prepared for International Association of Hydrogeologists Congress 2013 Sonic drilling is a relatively new technology that was used successfully to obtain relatively uncontaminated and undisturbed continuous core samples with excellent (>99%) recovery rates to depths of 206m in unconsolidated fluvio-lacustrine sediments of the Darling River floodplain. However, there are limitations with the standard sonic coring method. Sands, in particular, are disturbed when they are vibrated out of the core barrel into the flexible plastic sampling tube. There can be changes to moisture content, pore fluid chemistry and sediment mineralogy on exposure to the atmosphere, even when the samples are processed and analysed soon after collection. The option exists during sonic drilling to encapsulate the core in rigid polycarbonate lexan tubes. Although this increases costs and reduces drilling rates, atmospheric exposure of the core during drilling is reduced to the ends of the lexan tubes before being capped. In addition, the tubes can be purged with an inert gas such as argon. Lexan coring is best carried out below the watertable as the heat from drilling dry clays can cause the polycarbonate to melt. In the study, 60 sonic holes (4.5 km) and 40 rotary mud holes (2 km) were obtained as part of a program to map and assess potential groundwater resources and managed aquifer recharge (MAR) targets over a large area (7,500 km2) of the Darling River floodplain. Two of the sonic bores were drilled to depths of 60 metres to obtain lexan-encapsulated core samples. These cores were used to obtain less perturbed samples for pore fluid analysis (salinity, major ions, trace metals, stable isotopes), textural analysis, and analysis of mineral phases to help assess aquifer clogging potential (using XRD, XRF, SEM). An additional advantage of the lexan coring was the recovery of encapsulated and intact sediment intervals for determining porosities, effective porosities, hydraulic conductivities, and other geophysical and petrophysical measurements. By painting some tubes black, sand samples were also successfully obtained for optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating. Alternatively, opaque black lexan can be made to order by the supplier. Overall, the superior sample integrity obtained from lexan coring enables a greater range of hydrogeological and hydrochemical parameters to be assessed.

Homogeneity Tests for a Rotary Sample Divider Two rock types, a coarse-grained granite and a finer-grained volcanic rock, were used to test a Rotary Sample Divider attached to a Rocklabs Boyd Crusher for homogeneity. Approximately 3kg of each rock type were broken down by a jaw crusher, and then processed through a Boyd Crusher with splits taken using the attached rotary sample divider. The formula 10/(100-(10*n))-where n=the number of the split-was used to process the entire sample, i.e., 10% of the first split was taken and remainder returned to the Boyd crusher; 11% of the second split taken and remainder returned to the crusher; 12.5% of the 3rd one taken and remainder returned to the Boyd crusher etc., until all the sample was used and there were 10 roughly equal splits. Each split was halved and each half pulverised for 3 minutes in a Tungsten Carbide ring mill for 3 minutes. Pressed powder pellets and Lithium Borate glasses were made and analysed using a PW2404 XRF spectrometer. Results of major and trace element analysis shows that there is no apparent bias between either individual splits or from the first split to the last split, indicating homogeneity was achieved using the rotary sample divider.

Poster abstract submission for the AGU2013 Meeting