Title: Basin development and petroleum potential of offshore Otway basin, Australia
Abstract: The Bass Strait region in southeastern Australia contains three sedimentary basins, which are, from east to west, the Gippsland, Bass, and Otway basins. The offshore Gippsland basin is Australia's most prolific petroleum-producing province and supplies over 90% of the country's production. In contrast, exploration has been unsuccessful in the offshore portion of the Otway basin; 17 wells have been drilled, and although shows of oil and gas have been common, no commercial discoveries have been made. Many of these wells, drilled in the 1960s and 1970s, were sited using poor-quality seismic data and, as a consequence, were frequently off structure. Seismic data quality has, however, improved significantly in recent years. The present study by the Australian Bureau of Mineral Resources (BMR) involved the collection, in the offshore Otway basin, of 3700 km of high-quality, 48-channel seismic reflection data by the BMR research vessel R/V Rig Seismic. These data have been integrated with existing industry seismic data, well data, limited dredged material, and geohistory analyses in a framework study of basin development and hydrocarbon potential in this under-explored area. The offshore Otway basin extends 500 km along the southern coastline and is typically 50 km wide in water depths of lessmore » than 200 m. It contains up to 10 km of predominantly late Mesozoic to early Cenozoic sediments, which are overlain by a thin sequence of middle to late Tertiary shelf carbonates. It has been divided into three main structural elements: the Mussel Platform in the east, the central Voluta Trough, and the Crayfish Platform in the west. The basin was initiated at the end of the Jurassic as part of the Bassian rift. Up to 6 km of Lower Cretaceous sediments were deposited prior to breakup at the end of the Early Cretaceous and the onset of sea-floor spreading between Australia and Antarctica.« less
Publication Year: 1987
Publication Date: 1987-05-01
Language: en
Type: article
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