In the brief period 2005-2010, geothermal energy showed rapid growth in Australia with many tenements being taken up, significant exploration activities and a number of very deep wells drilled. Since that time, despite world-leading technical success, expenditure, activity, tenement holdings and personnel numbers have decreased markedly. Success has been achieved with the generation of electricity by Geodynamics Ltd at Innamincka, and the creation of a geothermal reservoir by Petratherm Ltd at Paralana. This article examines why this decline has occurred, and looks at the place of geothermal energy in Australia's Clean Energy Future.

The basement beneath Australia's offshore basins was the cradle for sediments involved in oil and gas formation. Knowledge of basement depth, boundaries and evolution provides clues to the petroleum potential of Australia's sedimentary basins. The problem is finding the right combination of geophysical techniques to define basement offshore, and knowing what adjustments to make to reduce unwanted effects in definition. Geoscience Australia's Alexey Goncharov outlines his team's exciting new basement and crustal studies that are tackling the problems.

Geoscience Australia's Bremer Sub-basin Study is providing the first new frontier exploration opportunity under the Commonwealth Government's New Oil program.

Legacy product - no abstract available

Integration of recent studies involving palaeo-geographic plate reconstructions, structural restorations of a regional seismic transect, fluid inclusion studies and hydrocarbon expulsion modelling collectively highlight a potential new oily sub-basin in the deepwater outer Browse Basin.

How much oil and gas remains to be discovered? At the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA) Conference in Hobart in 2001, Dr Trevor Powell, Chief of the Petroleum and Marine Division, delivered a paper discussing the future of Australia?s hydrocarbon production1. Australia has enjoyed a high level of self-sufficiency for its liquid hydrocarbon requirements but forecasts of future production suggest that as early as 2005, the level of production will drop by about 33% and by 2010, production will be down by about 50%. This production forecast includes forecast production from already developed and soon to be developed fields, as well as a component from fields yet to be discovered.

In 2010 the Australian Government offered for the first time a large exploration block for acreage release in the frontier Mentelle Basin. This large sedimentary basin (36, 000 m2) is located about 150 km to the west of Cape Leeuwin. It lies beneath the continental slope off the Yallingup Shelf and the Naturaliste Though, a bathymetric saddle, separating the Australian margin from the Naturaliste Plateau. Water depths range from 500-1500 on the continental slope to almost 4000 m in the central part of the Naturaliste Trough. To enable petroleum prospectivity assessment of this frontier basin in 2008-09 Geoscience Australia acquired 2570 km of industry standard seismic, as well as gravity and magnetic data during the Southwest Margins seismic survey 310. Interpretation of the new seismic data resulted in mapping of the main structures and supersequences and led to a better undertsanding of the Mentelle Basin geology. Petroleum prospectivity assessment of the Mentelle Basin confirmed that the Mentelle Basin has a significant potential to become a new petroleum province. The work undertaken by Geoscience Australia team suggests that the Mentelle Basin has at least one active petroleum system. The basin is likely to contain multiple source rock intervals associated with coals and carbonaceous shales, as well as regionally extensive reservoirs and seals within fluvial, lacustrine and marine strata. A wide range of play types have been identified in the Mentelle Basin, including faulted anticlines and highside fault blocks, sub-basalt anticlines and fault blocks, drape and forced fold plays, and a large range of stratigraphic and unconformity plays.

Modern Amplitude Versus Offset (AVO) compliant processing on long cable seismic data can identify anomalies potentially indicating gas and sometimes oil accumulation under some geological conditions. Geoscience Australia has reprocessed with AVO compliant processing parts of 4 lines from the 2006 Acreage Release areas W06-7 and W06-11 with bidding due to close on 9 November to determine if the AVO method could be useful in investigating petroleum prospectivity in those areas. The preliminary results from this reprocessing have been published and also presented at the 2006 Earth Sciences Convention in Melbourne in order to assist any companies interested in the acreage.

Legacy product - no abstract available

Metallogeny of eastern Australia As part of the `Felsic Igneous Rocks of Australia' project, Geoscience Australia personnel have been compiling and synthesising datasets of various metallogenic parameters for intrusive and country rock units of the Tasmanides of eastern Australia (previously reported in the xxx issue of AUSGEO News; web address; see http://www.ga.gov.au/rural/projects/aust_felsic_igneous_rocks.jsp), to assist the exploration industry in the search for intrusion-related and other mineralisation systems. As reported earlier this approach is been undertaken as regional modules, with datasets for north Queensland currently being prepared for release, and datasets for Tasmania now completed and released as a joint Geoscience Australia - Mineral Resources Tasmania product. This article reports on aspects of intrusion-related gold systems in northern Qld utilising the results of the new datasets for that region.