Authors / CoAuthors
Totterdell, J.M. | Stacey, A.R. | Mitchell, C.H.
Abstract
Australia's southern continental margin hosts rich oil and gas resources and offers huge potential for future discoveries. Most of Australia's oil has been produced from the Gippsland Basin, located in the easternmost part of the southern rift system. With all the petroleum system elements and processes in place, the basin contains Australia's only billion barrel oil fields. These giant accumulations are sourced from rich liquid-prone coaly and carbonaceous source rocks. In contrast, the western two-thirds of the southern margin is occupied by one of the largest frontier provinces in Australia - the Bight Basin. The thick sedimentary succession in the Bight Basin (>15 km) and its evolution from local half-graben depocentres during the Jurassic, to an extensive sag basin in the Early Cretaceous and passive margin during the Late Cretaceous to Holocene, suggests that there is significant potential for the presence of multiple petroleum systems across the basin. The Ceduna Sub-basin in the eastern Bight Basin is currently the focus of renewed exploration efforts. The key to its petroleum prospectivity is the distribution of Upper Cretaceous marine and deltaic facies. Dredging of upper Cenomanian-Turonian organic-rich marine rocks has confirmed the presence of high quality potential source rocks in this section. These rocks are mature in the central part of the Ceduna Sub-basin and are likely to have generated and expelled hydrocarbons since the Campanian. Excellent reservoir rocks and potential intraformational seals are present in the Upper Cretaceous deltaic successions, and regional seals could be provided by Upper Cretaceous marine shales.
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nonGeographicDataset
eCat Id
73336
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Cnr Jerrabomberra Ave and Hindmarsh Dr GPO Box 378
Canberra
ACT
2601
Australia
Keywords
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- External PublicationAbstract
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- petroleum potential
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- continental margins
- ( Theme )
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- sedimentary basins
- Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)
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- Earth Sciences
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- Published_Internal
Publication Date
2012-01-01T00:00:00
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