Authors / CoAuthors
Norton, C.J. | Rollet, N.
Abstract
The Australian Government, through the National Water Infrastructure Fund – Expansion, commissioned Geoscience Australia (GA) to undertake the project ‘Assessing the Status of Groundwater in the Great Artesian Basin’ (GAB). The project commenced in July 2019 and will finish in June 2022. The aim of the project is to develop and evaluate new tools and techniques to assess the status of GAB groundwater system to support responsible management of basin water resources. A critical relationship exists between sediment depositional architecture and groundwater flow within and between GAB aquifers, and their connectivity with underlying and overlying aquifers. Little is known about lateral and vertical facies variation within the hydrogeological units and potential compartmentalisation and connectivity across the GAB. To improve the understanding of distribution and characteristics of Jurassic and Cretaceous sediments across the Eromanga/Galilee/Surat basins region, GA is compiling, processing and correlating a variety of well log data. Correlations have been made between geological units of similar age using palynological data from 322 key wells along 28 regional transects to standardise lithostratigraphic units, which are currently described using varying nomenclature, to a single chronostratigraphic chart across the entire GAB. The distribution of generalised sand/shale ratios calculated for 236 wells in the Surat and Eromanga basins are used to estimate the thickness of sand and shale in the different formations, with implications for formation porosity and the hydraulic properties of aquifers and aquitards. This study highlights regional lithological heterogeneity in each hydrogeological unit, and contributes to our understanding of connectivity within and between aquifers. This report and associated data package provide a first phase of data compilation on 322 key wells in the Surat and Eromanga basins to assist in updating the geological framework for the GAB. A data gap analysis and recommendations for building on this initial work are also provided.
Product Type
product
eCat Id
145819
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Cnr Jerrabomberra Ave and Hindmarsh Dr GPO Box 378
Canberra
ACT
2601
Australia
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- Contact instructions
- MEG
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Keywords
- theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf
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- Stratigraphy (incl. Biostratigraphy and Sequence Stratigraphy)EARTH SCIENCES
- ( Theme )
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- stratigraphy
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- Published_External
Publication Date
2022-02-07T06:50:46
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completed
Purpose
Data compilation and acquisition with associated report as part of the GAB project Milestone 31 - technical report
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asNeeded
Topic Category
geoscientificInformation economy
Series Information
Record GA RECORD 2022/002
Lineage
Study as part of the Great Artesian Basin groundwater storage project 2019-2022
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[-21.8164, -17.0966, 116.4431, 125.9734]
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