Distribution of Triassic Reefs in Northern Exmouth Plateau and Offshore Canning Basin

A 1990 research project by BMR's Marine Division aimed to map Triassic and Jurassic carbonate reefs for petroleum potential. The project involved a proposed 34-day cruise to acquire 2500 km of seismic profiles, 15 dredges, and up to 5 cores. The work intended to assess the extent and petroleum prospects of reef plays on Australia's Northwest Shelf.

Use Cases

• Mapping subsurface reef extent and facies changes based on seismic profiling and dredging techniques mentioned in the description.
• Assessing petroleum prospectivity of Mesozoic reef traps based on the described potential for reefs to form hydrocarbon traps.
• Modeling geological history of the northern Exmouth Plateau and adjacent Canning Basin based on the project's stated aims.
• Identifying seismic character parameters for reef mapping in other basins based on the project's second-phase intention.

Strengths

• Project plan includes acquisition of 2500 km of multichannel seismic profiles.
• Description provides a specific geological context and exploration hypothesis, including a BMR estimate of a 50% chance of 60 million barrels of undiscovered oil.
• Focuses on a defined geographic area: the northern Exmouth Plateau and offshore Canning Basin.

Limitations

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

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Proposed marine research cruise involving seismic profiling, dredging, and coring.

Time Range

Project proposed for early 1990.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-20 01:31:36.592195; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Northern Exmouth Plateau and offshore Canning Basin, Northwest Shelf of Australia.