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Source Rocks of the Birrindudu Basin, perspectives from new sampling program

Created 17/10/2025

Updated 17/10/2025

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The Paleo- to Mesoproterozoic Birrindudu Basin is an underexplored frontier basin straddling the Northern Territory and Western Australia and is a region of focus for the second phase of Geoscience Australia’s Exploring for the Future (EFTF) program (2020–2024). Hydrocarbon exploration in the Birrindudu Basin has been limited and a thorough assessment of the basin's petroleum potential is lacking due to the absence of data in the region. To fill this data gap, a comprehensive analytical program including organic petrology, programmed pyrolysis and oil fluid inclusion analysis was undertaken on cores from six drill holes to improve the understanding of the basin’s source rock potential and assess petroleum migration. Organic petrological analyses reveal that the primary maceral identified in the cores is alginite mainly originating from filamentous cyanobacteria, while bitumen is the most common unstructured secondary organic matter. New reflectance data based on alginite and bitumen reflectance indicate the sampled sections have reached a thermal maturity suitable for hydrocarbon generation. Oil inclusion analyses provide evidence for oil generation and migration, and hence elements of a petroleum system are present in the basin.

Presented at the Australian Energy Producers (AEP) Conference & Exhibition (https://energyproducersconference.au/conference/)

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Field Value
Title Source Rocks of the Birrindudu Basin, perspectives from new sampling program
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/en/dataset/f0c8c9b2-a55f-43aa-b81f-1a6a67952a1c
Contact Point
Geoscience Australia Data
clientservices@ga.gov.au
Reference Period 17/06/2024
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
{
  "coordinates": [
    [
      [
        129.0,
        -26.0
      ],
      [
        138.0,
        -26.0
      ],
      [
        138.0,
        -11.0
      ],
      [
        129.0,
        -11.0
      ],
      [
        129.0,
        -26.0
      ]
    ]
  ],
  "type": "Polygon"
}
Data Portal Geoscience Australia

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Geoscience Australia "Source Rocks of the Birrindudu Basin, perspectives from new sampling program". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/source-rocks-of-the-birrindudu-basin-perspectives-from-new-sampling-program