Mid-Tertiary Permeability Barriers in the Murray Basin, Southeastern Australia

The Murray Basin in southeastern Australia contains subsurface geological data on mid-Tertiary permeability barriers affecting groundwater flow. The dataset likely contains stratigraphic and sedimentological analyses from borelogs, including porosity measurements from a fully cored section in the Piangil West-2 borehole. It was published by the Australian Ocean Data Network and last updated on 2026-06-04.

Use Cases

• Model groundwater flow disruption based on the described arcuate low-permeability barrier formed by the Winnambool Formation and Geera Clay.
• Analyze aquifer geometry and confining layer distribution based on the stratigraphy of the Ettrick Formation and Murray Group.
• Estimate original and effective porosity for subsurface barriers based on the visual mesoscopic porosity analysis described for the Geera Clay.
• Reconstruct paleogeographic marine incursions based on the described three separate Cainozoic sea invasions of the basin.

Strengths

• Includes specific porosity measurements (0-7% effective, 5-10% original) from a fully cored borehole section.
• Describes detailed stratigraphic units with thickness ranges (e.g., 10-30 m for Ettrick Formation, >100 m for Murray Group limestone).
• Provides a temporal framework for marine incursions, citing a 20-million-year period beginning about 32 million years ago.

Limitations

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

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Subsurface facies analysis of borelogs and paleogeographic reconstructions, as described.

Time Range

Mid-Tertiary (Oligocene to Miocene), with specific references to events from about 32 million years ago.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-04 06:08:38.960682; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Murray Basin, southeastern Australia, with specific references to western, central west, and southwestern areas.