Onshore Basin Inventory

Last updated:7 June 2023

The purpose of the Onshore Basin Inventory is to provide a concise inventory of the available data and current geological knowledge of onshore Australian basins. These publications will adopt a similar format to the Geoscience Australia record 2014/09: 'Petroleum geology inventory of Australia's offshore frontier basins' by Totterdell et al. (2014). This information will assist in advising the Australian Government and other stakeholders, such as the petroleum industry, about the exploration status and prospectivity of onshore Australian basins.

This record series provides a comprehensive whole of basin inventory of the geology, petroleum systems, exploration status and data coverage for onshore Australian basins. It draws on precompetitive work programs by Geoscience Australia as well as publically available exploration results and geoscience literature. Furthermore, the record provides an assessment of issues and unanswered questions and recommends future work directions to meet these unknowns. The aim of the project is to cover all prospective Australian onshore basins through delivery of a series of volumes.

Volume 1 of the Onshore Basin Inventory covers the following basins:

  • McArthur Basin
  • South Nicholson Basin
  • Georgina Basin
  • Wiso Basin
  • Amadeus Basin
  • Warburton Basin
  • Cooper Basin
  • Galilee Basin

Volume 2 of the Onshore Basin Inventory is currently in preparation. It will cover a selection of western, central and eastern Australian basins, prioritising those with a high level of current exploration interest such as the Canning and Perth basins.

Basins included in the onshore basin inventory, volume 1

Prospectivity-confidence matrix for basins in Australia's onshore basin inventory volume 1

Reports