Mid-Tertiary Permeability Barriers in the Murray Basin Subsurface

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

Use Cases

• Model groundwater flow paths based on the distribution of low-permeability barriers like the Winnambool Formation and Geera Clay.
• Assess aquifer connectivity based on the stratigraphic separation between the Renmark Group and Murray Group aquifer systems.
• Estimate subsurface porosity and permeability based on core sample analysis from the Piangil West-2 borehole.
• Reconstruct paleogeographic marine incursions based on facies analysis and borelog data.

Strengths

• Includes specific porosity measurements (0-7% effective porosity) from a fully cored borehole section.
• Describes detailed stratigraphic relationships and unit thicknesses (e.g., 10-30m for Ettrick Formation, >100m for Murray Group limestone).
• Provides a temporal framework for marine incursions, spanning at least 20 million years from about 32 Ma ago.

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 geographic bias inherent to data_gov_au, focusing on the western and central Murray Basin.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Subsurface facies analysis of borelogs and paleogeographic reconstructions.

Time Range

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

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-23 00:02:23.756520; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Subsurface of the Murray Basin, southeastern Australia, with focus on west-central areas.