Onshore Energy Security Program: Australian Geothermal and Geophysical Data

Geoscience Australia's Onshore Energy Security Program provides $58.9 million over five years for acquiring pre-competitive geoscience data to attract energy exploration investment. The program includes national and regional-scale projects focusing on geothermal, petroleum, uranium, and thorium energy sources. Data acquisition involves seismic, gravity, geochemistry, heat flow, radiometric, magneto-telluric, and airborne electromagnetic methods.

Use Cases

• Modeling subsurface temperature distribution based on heat flow and Austherm map data mentioned in the description
• Assessing regional energy potential for exploration based on integrated geophysical and geochemical datasets
• Mapping crustal stress states to reduce geological risk for geothermal drilling projects
• Prioritizing new exploration areas in greenfields regions based on pre-competitive science-driven data

Strengths

• $58.9 million funding over five years for systematic data acquisition
• Collaborative delivery under the National Geoscience Agreement with State and Territory partners
• Multiple data types including seismic, gravity, geochemistry, and heat flow for integrated analysis

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 specific Australian regions

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia (formerly Bureau of Mineral Resources)

Collection Method

Acquisition of new seismic, gravity, geochemistry, heat flow, radiometric, magneto-telluric and airborne electromagnetic data under a federal government initiative.

Time Range

Program announced in August 2006, with data acquisition spanning a five-year funding period.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-05 07:12:06.420552; freshness should be verified

Geography

Australia, with specific regional projects in Georgetown-Isa, Gawler-Curnamona, Northern WA, and the Northern Territory.