Sensitivity of Detection of Fugitive Methane Emissions from Coal Seam Gas Fields

Geoscience Australia and CSIRO Marine & Atmospheric Research collected three years of continuous methane and carbon dioxide measurements at the 'Arcturus' monitoring station in the Bowen Basin, Australia. This dataset underpins a simulation study using the TAPM model to test the sensitivity of atmospheric detection techniques for fugitive emissions from a new coal seam gas field. The work establishes a baseline critical for distinguishing CSG emissions from other sources like cattle and landfill.

Use Cases

• Benchmarking atmospheric monitoring techniques against a three-year baseline of methane and CO2 levels.
• Simulating fugitive emission detection sensitivity for coal seam gas fields at distances of 10-50 km.
• Modeling the impact of varying emission rates (from <1% to 10% of production lost) on atmospheric signals.
• Differentiating coal seam gas emissions from confounding sources like cattle and landfill using isotopic signatures.

Strengths

• Provides a three-year continuous baseline of atmospheric methane and CO2 measurements.
• Simulation parameters are based on typical Australian CSG field characteristics for well density, production volume, and field size.
• Cross-platform presence on data.gov.au indicates recognized importance for environmental monitoring.

Limitations

• Core data structure (columns, row count, file size) is unspecified across all platform entries.
• License, author, and direct download links are not provided.
• The dataset description is repeated verbatim across entries, suggesting sparse metadata.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia and CSIRO Marine & Atmospheric Research.

Collection Method

Continuous atmospheric measurements collected at the 'Arcturus' station, coupled with prognostic meteorological and air pollution modeling (TAPM) for simulations.

Time Range

Three years of baseline measurements, plus one year of simulated emissions.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-05 according to one entry.

Geography

Bowen Basin, Australia (Queensland).