A 30-day research cruise in February-March 1989 measured light hydrocarbon gases in the water column over five offshore sedimentary basins in southeastern Australia. The survey, conducted by the Australian Bureau of Mineral Resources and Transglobal Exploration and Geoscience, aimed to assess the technique's applicability for locating petroleum accumulations. It included detailed proprietary programs in the Bass and Stansbury basins and regional lines across the Gippsland, Otway, and Torquay basins.
Use Cases
- Predict hydrocarbon source rock maturity based on light hydrocarbon gas concentrations in seawater.
- Identify likely locations for petroleum accumulation within offshore basins using molecular composition data.
- Evaluate the applicability of 'sniffer' survey techniques for Australian offshore exploration.
- Compare geochemical signatures over known oil and gas fields with regional background measurements.
- Analyze spatial relationships between water column geochemistry and underlying sedimentary basin structures.
Strengths
- Survey conducted over a specific 30-day period from February 1 to March 2, 1989.
- Coverage includes five distinct geological basins and sub-basins in southeastern Australia.
- Program included both regional survey lines and detailed proprietary investigations.
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 temporal bias inherent to a single 1989 survey.
Provenance
- Source
- Australian Ocean Data Network
- Collection Method
- Data likely gathered via a hydrocarbon 'sniffer' towed near the seafloor, with water pumped to the surface for continuous gas chromatography analysis.
- Time Range
- February 1 to March 2, 1989
- Freshness
- Last updated 2026-04-16 15:34:01.087013; freshness should be verified.
- Geography
- Gippsland, Bass, Otway, and Stansbury Basins and the Torquay Sub-basin, Southeastern Australia