Evolution of Australian Sedimentary Basins: The NW Shelf and the Gippsland basin

Frame and scope of Project

Australia has significant natural resources, with gas being one of the largest energy resources after coal and uranium. Conventional gas accumulations are widespread both on and offshore, occurring in many basins, but most of the reserves are found off the north-west margin in the Bonaparte Basin and in the south-eastern part in the Gippsland basin. Although many elements of the petroleum systems within the two basins are now known, petroleum-source rock correlations are not available.

This project, as part of the Methane On the Move project, aims at establishing a mass balance between generation and escape of methane from the Bonaparte (Vulcan Sub-basin and Laminaria High) and Gippsland basins, which will allow to estimate the possible contribution of methane emissions to the global climate change process throughout the Cenozoic to present day.

A 3D basin modeling approach in combination with the organic geochemistry data (bulk and compositional kinetics, isotopic compositions of the generated gases), will be used to improve our understanding of the evolution of the studied basins and reconstruct the dominant processes controlling the generation, migration and escape of the methane. In addition, testing different scenarios and probabilities will determine whether significant release of methane can be associated with major tectonic events during the evolutional histories of the investigated basins.



Participants
Brian Horsfield
Diane Edwards
Herbert Volk
Rolando Di Primio
Simon George
Soumaya Abbassi
Zahie Anka

Partners
Macquarie University - Australia
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) - Australia
Geoscience Australia (GA) - Australia

Funding
Macquarie University -Australia
Helmholtz Centre Potsdam – GFZ German Research Centre For Geosciences - Germany