Late Cretaceous-Palaeogene nannofossil biostratigraphy of Challenger No. 1 well (Challenge

Calcareous nannofossil assemblages from the Challenger No. 1 well in the offshore Perth Basin, Western Australia. The data, provided by Geoscience Australia, revises the age of the Challenger Formation type section and identifies three major disconformities within the Late Cretaceous-Palaeogene sequence. The section is described as more complete than coeval sections from nearby Deep Sea Drilling Project sites.

Use Cases

• Refining regional stratigraphic frameworks based on nannofossil biostratigraphy mentioned in the description.
• Correlating offshore and onshore geological units in the Perth Basin based on identified age revisions and disconformities.
• Studying sedimentation patterns and hiatuses during the Cretaceous-Palaeogene transition based on the three detected disconformities.
• Comparing the completeness of geological records between the Challenger No. 1 well and other regional drilling sites.

Strengths

• Provides a revised age for the type section of the Challenger Formation from Late Eocene to Middle Eocene-Oligocene.
• Identifies three major disconformities at specific geological boundaries (Eocene/Oligocene, Cretaceous/Tertiary, within Campanian).
• Describes a more complete Late Cretaceous-Palaeogene section than found at nearby Deep Sea Drilling Project sites.

Limitations

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

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Biostratigraphic analysis of calcareous nannofossil assemblages from a well core.

Time Range

Late Cretaceous to Palaeogene (Santonian/Campanian through Oligocene)

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-30 14:27:26.974088; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Challenger No. 1 well, offshore Perth Basin, Western Australia