SEAPEX Exploration Conference 2001

Orchard Hotel, Singapore

4th 6th April 2001

AUSTRALIA AND EASTERN INDONESIA AT THE CROSSROADS OF GONDWANA AND TETHYS - THE IMPLICATIONS
FOR PETROLEUM RESOURCES
By Marita Bradshaw,
AGSO, GPO Box 378, Canberra 2601 Australia
marita.bradshaw@agso.gov.au
Since Wallace drew his line, the Australasian region has been recognised as
a pivotal place on the earth's surface, where across a sharp gradient we step
from one world to another. In the biological realm, Asian elephants, tigers and
weaver birds are juxtaposed to Australian cockatoos, giant goannas and
marsupials across a narrow gap of deep water running between Borneo and
Sulawesi and continuing between Bali and Lombok (van Oosterzee, 1997).
These faunal changes reflect a geological history along the border zone
between the great southern continent of Gondwana, the ancient Tethyan
ocean and an evolving Asian landmass.
The legacy of this history for petroleum exploration is a complex and diverse
region where a multitude of petroleum systems, ranging in age from the
Cambrian to the Neogene, can be exploited (Bradshaw et al., 1997).
Hydrocarbons have been generated from marine, lacustrine, deltaic and coal
swamp facies; and both carbonate and siliciclastic source rocks occur. The
most prolific petroleum systems are the product of organic rich rocks
accumulated in tropical environments, not unlike the present day regime.
There are important synergies to be gained in considering the petroleum
geology of the Australasian region as a whole, and in particular by recognising
the shared petroleum systems between northern Australia, New Guinea,
Timor and other parts of eastern Indonesia. The complex geology of the
region is a natural consequence of its location at the plate boundary today and
in the past. This history is being progressively unravelled and a number of
detailed plate model reconstructions (Hall, 1999; Metcalfe, 1997) are now
available for the region. Just as macro-fossils such as Glossopteris helped in
the recognition of the various fragments of Gondwana, so molecular fossils
such as biomarkers in oils (Peters and Moldowan, 1993) may also be used to
identify relationships between areas later disconnected by plate movements.
The comparisons and linkages between the petroleum systems and oil
geochemistry of the region has been previously discussed by ten Harven and
Schiefelbein (1995); Bradshaw et al., (1997), Howes (1997), Schiefelbein and
Cameron (1997), Todd et al., (1997) and others. This abstract aims to provide
an up date for the Australian region to the information compiled in Fraser et
al., (1997) and Howes and Noble (1997). In the intervening years, new
petroleum systems have been identified and have come into production. The
gulf in age between the Indonesian systems, dominated by oil sourced from
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Tertiary rocks, and the Jurassic and older Australian petroleum systems has
narrowed. Discoveries attributed to Permian source rocks have been made
both sides of the border - giant gas fields Irian Jaya, and more modest
accumulations of gas, condensate and oil on Australias North West Shelf.
The Cretaceous is now recognised as a proven source rock interval in the
Bonaparte and Browse Basins and in onshore Irian Jaya.
Early Palaeozoic
In the Cambrian Australia was locked into the jig-saw puzzle of Gondwana
with various continental blocks now located in Asia arrayed along the current
North West Shelf margin (Fig.1). As today, the region straddled the equator
and shallow seas stretched through central and northern Australia, across the
what is now the Arafura Sea and the southern half of New Guinea; and on into
the continental blocks that later amalgamated to form China and south-east
Asia (Metcalfe, 1997). There is oil production from Ordovician reservoirs at the
opposite ends of this now dismembered shallow seaway - in central Australia
(Mereenie field, Amadeus Basin) and in the Tarim Basin of western China
(Fig. 1).

Carbon-rich oil prone source rocks were deposited in these warm shallow
waters of the palaeo-tropics. In terms of organic matter content, the Early
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Palaeozoic marine shales deposited in northern and central Australia are the
richest potential source rocks on the continent. They have been linked
together as part of the Larapintine Petroleum Supersystem (Bradshaw et al.,
1994) and their distinctive oil geochemistry has been described by AGSO and
GeoMark (1996), Edwards et al., (1997) and Summons et al., (1998). Rich
source rock intervals are recognised in the early to middle Cambrian, the
Early Ordovician and Late Devonian.
The prospective zone for the Larapintine Petroleum Supersystem extends
across the stable platform from northern Australia into eastern Indonesia
(Moore et al., 1996; Bradshaw et al., 1997) as further confirmed by the recent
interpretation of re-processed seismic data reported by Moss (2001).
Significant oil shows have been reported from the Palaeozoic sediments of
the Arafura Basin in both Australian and Indonesian waters. Oils correlated to
Cambrian source rocks (Edwards et al., 1997; Summons et al., 1998) have
been recovered from Ordovician carbonates and Devonian sandstones in the
Australian sector in Arafura -1 (Bradshaw et al., 1990); and oil shows are
reported from Siluro-Devonian carbonates in Kola-1 (Moss, 2001) located
offshore Irian Jaya. Advances in the understanding of the thermal history of
the region (Moore et al., 1996) and improved seismic coverage will enable

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explorers to better target the Palaeozoic potential of the Arafura Basin than
the previous limited drilling.
Late Palaeozoic
In the late Devonian, the Palaeo-Tethys ocean opened separating the South
China, Tarim, Indochina and North China blocks from Gondwana (Metcalfe,
1997). The Caledonia Orogeny in China and the Alice Springs Orogeny in
Australia signal these events; and from this time onwards the geological
histories of Australia and China diverged dramatically.
Australia as part of Gondwana, shifted southwards into polar regions, and by
the Late Carboniferous-earliest Permian was partially covered by an ice sheet.
Tropical conditions continued on the Chinese continental fragments, with the
characteristic Cathaysian faunas being in sharp contrast to the glacial
deposits and high latitude coals typical of the Gondwanan continents.
Onshore Permian coal basins are important suppliers of domestic gas in
Australia (Bowen and Cooper Basins) and undeveloped Permian gas
accumulations also occur offshore in the Petrel Sub-basin, of the Bonaparte
Basin (Fig. 2). Kennard et al., (2000) and Edwards et al., (in press) detail the
evidence for a Permian petroleum system that has sourced oil, as well as gas
and condensate in the Bonaparte Basin. There is a close similarity of the Late
Permian sedimentary sequences from northern Australia and Irian Jaya. The
geological and geochemical evidence (Perkins and Livsey, 1993; Bradshaw et
al., 1997) indicates that the coals and associated shales of the Permian Ainim
Formation are the likely source of the giant gas fields (Wiriagar, Vorwata) in
the Birds Head (Fig. 2). In this context, one is left to speculate whether
Permian sediments are also the source for the recent Abadi-1 gas/condensate
discovery in the Indonesian Masela PSC Block (Oil and Gas Australia, 2001)
in the eastern Timor Sea.
Mesozoic
By the Triassic, the Meso-Tethys had opened as the Cimmerian continent
rifted off from the Gondwanan core (Metcalfe, 1997). The Mesozoic carbonate
belt running along the northern shores of Tethys is well known from the
Austrian Alps to the Middle East (Baudin, 1995), and evidence has
accumulated in recent years of a similar zone mirrored on the southern shores
of Tethys (Fig. 3). ODP drilling unexpectedly recovered Rhaetian reefal
carbonates from the northern margin of Australia's Exmouth Plateau (Exon et
al., 1991). There is also some geochemical evidence to suggest that the oils
sourced from Mesozoic carbonate facies seen in Seram, Buton, Buru and
Timor may also extend to the outer Bonaparte and Browse Basins (Edwards
et al., in press) and to the Carnarvon Basin (George, et al., 1998). A picture is
emerging of another petroleum system developed out beyond the typical Late
Jurassic Westralian system (Bradshaw et al., 1994) of the North West Shelf.
This Sahul system (Summons et al., 1998) is characterised by hydrocarbons
sourced from deep water marls rather than marine shales with a significant
higher plant input as found in the inboard failed rifts (Bradshaw et al., 1994).
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By the Late Jurassic, the last of the continental fragments had rifted from
Australia's north-west margin, and the Indian Ocean began to open as the
major blocks of Gondwana separated. The Late Jurassic Westralian
Petroleum Supersystem extends along the western and northern Australian
margin from the Carnarvon Basin to the Papuan Basin (Bradshaw et al.,
1994); and there is now evidence of viable Cretaceous oil source rocks over a
similar wide geographic range. Oil accumulations sourced from Early
Cretaceous marine shales are now proven in the Browse and Bonaparte
Basins (Blevin et al., 1998; Preston and Edwards, 2000); and McConachie et
al., (2000) report an Early Cretaceous petroleum system from Warim in the
foldbelt of Irian Jaya. However, in the global context, the Australasian region
is very under-represented in oil reserves derived from mid Cretaceous
(Aptian-Turonian) source rocks (Klemme and Ulmishek, 1991). This gap in the
distribution may be filled with further finds on the North West Shelf and into
eastern Indonesia, as well as along Australia's southern margin (Totterdell et
al., 2000).
Cainozoic
The region has had a dramatic Cainozoic tectonic history as the Australian,
Pacific and Asian plates have collided, subducted, buckled, fragmented and
sheared (Hall, 1999) producing a host of young petroliferous basins.
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Cainozoic petroleum systems are dominant in Indonesia, ranging from

Eocene lake basins in Sumatra, deltaic complexes in Kalimantan, to Miocene
carbonates in the Salawati Basin of the Birds Head (ten Haven and
Schiefelbein, 1995). In contrast, on the old Gondwanan core of Australia most
known hydrocarbons are derived from Mesozoic and Palaeozoic sources. The
one significant exception being the Gippsland Basin in south-eastern Australia
where the Late Cretaceous to Eocene lower delta plain deposits of the
Latrobe Group are the accepted source rock. However, Eocene oil shales
occur onshore in Queensland in small lake basins close to the current
coastline where a pilot plant has been established to retort oil from the
crushed shale. Perhaps these organic-rich facies may also occur offshore in
basins where they may be mature for oil generation (Longley et al., 2001).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Brian Hack is thanked for drafting, and John Laurie, Roger Summons and
Clinton Foster are thanked for reviewing the text. The author publishes with
the permission of the Chief Executive Officer, Australian Geological Survey
Organisation.
Figures
Figure 1. Reconstruction of eastern Gondwana for the Cambro-Ordovician
from Metcalfe (1997). Land shown in orange, shallow seas in light blue, deep
sea in dark blue and basins with Cambro-Ordovician petroleum systems
shown in green. NC = North China, SC = South China, T = Tarim, I =
Indochina, QI = Qiangtang, L = Lhasa, S = Sibumasu, WB = West Burma, GI
= Greater India. Land and sea distribution compiled from Golonka et al.,
(1994) and Struckmeyer & Totterdell (1990).
Figure 2. Reconstruction of the Tethyan region for the Late Permian from
Metcalfe (1997). Land shown in orange, shallow seas in light blue, deep sea
in dark blue. Gas fields in the Bonaparte Basin, Australia and Irian Jaya
considered to be sourced from Late Permian source rocks indicated by red
stars. NC = North China, SC = South China, I = Indochina, WC = Western
Cimmerian Continent, QI = Qiangtang, L = Lhasa, S = Sibumasu. Land and
sea distribution compiled from Golonka et al., (1994) and Struckmeyer &
Totterdell (1990).
Figure 3. Reconstruction of the Tethyan region for the Late Triassic from
Metcalfe (1997). Land shown in orange, shallow seas in light blue, deep sea
in dark blue. Areas of carbonate facies shown in green from Baudin (1995).
NC = North China, SC = South China, I = Indochina, SG = Songpan Ganzi
accretionary complex, WC = Western Cimmerian Continent, QI = Qiangtang,
S = Sibumasu, L = Lhasa, WB = West Burma. Land and sea distribution
compiled from Golonka et al., (1994) and Struckmeyer & Totterdell (1990).

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