Lake Eliza Sediment Data: A Modern Analogue for Green River Oil Shale Genesis

Lake Eliza is a hypersaline coastal lake in southeast South Australia with salinity rising from less than 100 in winter to greater than 360% in summer. The dataset compares sediment samples from two contrasting lake margins, a protected western shore with fine carbonate sediments and an exposed eastern shore with quartz-carbonate sand. This data from Geoscience Australia is presented as a modern analogue for interpreting the depositional environment of lamosite oil shales in the Green River Formation.

Use Cases

• Modeling depositional environments for ancient oil shales based on modern sedimentological analogues.
• Analyzing the relationship between lake salinity, organic content, and sediment texture in protected versus exposed shorelines.
• Comparing carbonate and quartz sand distributions in hypersaline lacustrine systems.

Strengths

• Provides a direct modern analogue for a major ancient oil shale formation (Green River Formation).
• Compares two distinct sedimentary environments (protected vs. exposed lake margins) within the same system.
• Includes specific salinity measurements (less than 100% to greater than 360%) and organic content comparisons.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data is presented in PDF/HTML formats, which may require extraction for computational analysis.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Field study of two areas of the lake margin exposed in summer.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-30 15:14:59.111462; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Lake Eliza, southeast South Australia.