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Regional stratigraphic correlation transects across the Great Artesian Basin - Eromanga and Surat basins focus study  


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

Contact for the resource

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Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)  
Cnr Jerrabomberra Ave and Hindmarsh Dr GPO Box 378
Canberra
ACT
2601
Australia

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Digital Object Identifier

http://dx.doi.org/10.11636/Record.2022.002

Keywords

theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf
  • Stratigraphy (incl. Biostratigraphy and Sequence Stratigraphy)EARTH SCIENCES
( Theme )
  • stratigraphy
  • Published_External

Publication Date

2022-02-07T06:50:46

Creation Date

Security Constraints

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem    

Classification - unclassified

Legal Constraints

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence    

Access - license

Use - license

Status

completed

Purpose

Data compilation and acquisition with associated report as part of the GAB project Milestone 31 - technical report

Maintenance Information

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

Parent Information

Extents

[-21.8164, -17.0966, 116.4431, 125.9734]

Reference System

Spatial Resolution

Service Information

Associations

Downloads and Links

Download the Record (pdf) [6.2 MB]  

Download Appendix A – Supplementary Material [357 MB]  

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