Geochemical Characteristics of Mesozoic Petroleum Systems in the Bonaparte Basin

The Bonaparte Basin in northwestern Australia has been actively explored for over twenty years. This dataset presents isotopic and biomarker analyses of Mesozoic oils to characterize oil families within the Westralian Petroleum Supersystem, identifying multiple families sourced from Jurassic and Early Cretaceous rocks. The study was presented at the 2000 AAPG International Conference and Exhibition and is hosted by the Australian Ocean Data Network.

Use Cases

• Correlating oil families between sub-basins based on isotopic and biomarker signatures described in the study
• Modeling petroleum systems by distinguishing between land-plant influenced and marine influenced oil end-members mentioned in the description
• Identifying source rocks for discovered hydrocarbons based on the geochemical characterization of oils from the Vulcan and Petrel Sub-basins

Strengths

• Analysis is based on oils from a basin with over twenty years of active exploration history
• Study distinguishes at least four distinct oil families/sub-families with different geochemical signatures

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to data_gov_au, focusing on the Bonaparte Basin

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Isotopic and biomarker analyses carried out on Mesozoic oils

Time Range

Mesozoic era (Jurassic and Cretaceous periods); study presented in 2000

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-27 16:40:34.867466; freshness should be verified

Geography

Bonaparte Basin, northwestern Australia, including the Vulcan Sub-basin, Zone of Co-operation (ZOCA), and Browse Basin