Product catalogue
Source rock geochemistry and petroleum systems of the greater McArthur Basin and links to other northern Australian Proterozoic basins
Northern Australia contains extensive Proterozoic aged sedimentary basins that contain organic-rich rocks with the potential to host major petroleum and basin-hosted mineral systems (Figures 1 and 2). These intracratonic basins include the greater McArthur Basin including the McArthur and Birrindudu basins and the Tomkinson Provence (Close 2014), the Isa Superbasin and the South Nicholson Basin. The sedimentary sections within these basins are assumed to be of equivalent age and deposited under similar climatic controls resulting in correlative lithology, source facies and stratigraphic intervals.
The greater McArthur Basin contains Paleoproterozoic to Mesoproterozoic organic-rich siltstones and shales with the potential to generate conventional oil and gas deposits, self-sourced continuous shale oil and shale gas targets (Munson 2014; Revie 2017; Weatherford Laboratories 2017). Exploration has focused on the Beetaloo Sub-basin where organic-rich siltstones of the Velkerri Formation contain up to 10 weight percent total organic carbon (wt % TOC) and have been assessed to contain 118 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas-in-place (Munson 2014; Revie 2017; Weatherford Laboratories 2017; Revie and Normington 2018). Other significant source rocks include the Kyalla Formation of the Roper Group, the Barney Creek, Yalco and Lynott formations of the McArthur Group, the Wollogorang, and perhaps the McDermott formations of the Tawallah Group and the Vaughton Siltstone of the Balma Group in the northern greater McArthur Basin (Munson 2014). These source rocks are host to diverse play types, for example, Cote et al (2018) describes five petroleum plays in the Beetaloo Sub-basin; the Velkerri shale dry gas play, the Velkerri liquids-rich gas play, the Kyalla shale and hybrid liquid-rich gas play and the Hayfield Sandstone oil/condensate play. This highlights the large shale and tight gas resource potential of the McArthur Basin, the full extent of these resources are poorly understood and insufficiently quantified. More work is needed to characterise the source rocks, the petroleum generative potential, fluid migration pathways, the fluid types and the thermal and burial history to understand the hydrocarbon prospectivity of the basin.
The Exploring for the Future (EFTF) program is a four-year (2016?-2020) $100.5 million initiative by the Australian Government conducted in partnership with state and Northern Territory government agencies, other key government, research and industry partners and universities. EFTF aims to boost northern Australia's attractiveness as a destination for investment in resource exploration. The Energy Systems Branch at Geoscience Australia has undertaken a regional study on the prospectivity of several northern Australian basins by expanding our knowledge of petroleum and mineral system geochemistry. Here we highlight some of the results of this ongoing program with a primary focus on the greater McArthur Basin.
Abstract submitted to and presented at the Annual Geoscience Exploration Seminar (AGES) 2019 ( https://www.aig.org.au/events/ages-2019/)
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Identification info
- Date (Creation)
- 2019-02-01T01:59:00
- Date (Publication)
- 2024-02-15T04:58:04
- Citation identifier
- Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/126716
- Cited responsible party
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Author Jarrett, A.J.M.
Author MacFarlane, S.
MEG Internal Contact Author Palu, T.
MEG Internal Contact Author Boreham, C.
MEG Internal Contact Author Hall, L.
Space Division Internal Contact Author Edwards, D.
MEG Internal Contact Author Cox, G.M.
External Contact Author Brooks, J.
External Contact Author Munson, T.J.
External Contact Author Carr, L.
MEG Internal Contact Author Henson, P.
MEG Internal Contact Publisher Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice
- Name
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Annual Geoscience Exploration Seminar (AGES) 19-20 March 2019 Alice Springs, NT
- Purpose
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Extended Abstractt to submit to the Annual Geoscience Exploration Seminar (AGES) 2019
- Status
- Completed
- Point of contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Resource provider Minerals, Energy and Groundwater Division
External Contact Point of contact Palu, T.
MEG Internal Contact
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- Geoscientific information
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Extent
))
- Maintenance and update frequency
- Not planned
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Product data repository: Various Formats
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Data Store directory containing the digital product files
Data Store directory containing one or more files, possibly in a variety of formats, accessible to Geoscience Australia staff only for internal purposes
- theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf
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EARTH SCIENCES
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- Keywords
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source rock geochemistry
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- Keywords
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greater McArthur Basin
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- Project
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Exploring for the Future - EFTF
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- Keywords
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petroleum supersystems
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- Keywords
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Published_External
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Resource constraints
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
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CC-BY
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4.0
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(c) Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia) 2019
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Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Distributor Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
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Link to Abstract and Presentation
Link to Abstract and Presentation
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- OnLine resource
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Link to Conference Page
Link to Conference Page
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- Statement
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Abstract to submit to the Annual Geoscience Exploration Seminar (AGES) 2019
- Hierarchy level
- Document
Metadata constraints
- Title
-
Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
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urn:uuid/100a37a6-0234-49dc-a330-de9bd091763a
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GeoNetwork UUID
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- English
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- UTF8
- Contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Owner Jarrett, A.
External Contact Point of contact Palu, T.
MEG Internal Contact
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Document
- Name
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Conference Abstract
Alternative metadata reference
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Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with
uuid
- Citation identifier
- eCatId/126716
- Date info (Creation)
- 2018-05-04T03:37:56
- Date info (Revision)
- 2018-05-04T03:38:12
Metadata standard
- Title
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AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-3
- Title
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Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014
- Edition
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Version 2.0, September 2018
- Citation identifier
- https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551