Permian Coals of Eastern Australia: Geology and Coal Properties Report

Geoscience Australia Data provides an overview of Permian coals and coal-bearing basins across eastern Australia. The report contains two major databases covering the stratigraphy, structure, and chemical properties of the coals, summarized in 42 plates and dozens of line drawings. It describes three tectonic groups of basins, including the large Sydney-Bowen Basin which contains most major black coal mines.

Use Cases

• Classifying tectonic basin types based on the described rift, intracratonic, and marginal basin groups.
• Analyzing coal properties and depositional environments based on described chemical, petrographic, and sedimentological data.
• Mapping the extent and characteristics of Permian coal measures across eastern Australia based on the described geographic coverage.
• Studying the impact of paleoclimate, including glacial conditions, on coal formation as described in the report.

Strengths

• Covers an enormous geographic area equivalent to the Carboniferous coal basins of Europe from Scotland to the western Soviet Union.
• Report contains two major databases (BMR and CSIRO) and is summarized in 42 plates and dozens of line drawings.
• Describes specific basin types and features, such as seams up to 30 m thick and a resource estimate of over 3 x 10^12 tonnes in interior basins.

Limitations

• Description metadata is limited; actual data quality requires manual inspection after download.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Report compiling data from BMR (stratigraphy/structure) and CSIRO (coal properties) databases.

Time Range

Permian period (geological time).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-30 15:03:19.023008; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Eastern Australia, from Cape York to Tasmania, between the coast and the middle of the Great Artesian Basin.