U. S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
U.S. GEOLOGICAL SURVEY
A TOTAL PETROLEUM SYSTEM OF THE BROWSE BASIN, AUSTRALIA:
Late Jurassic, Early Cretaceous-Mesozoic
by
Michele G. Bishop1
Open-File Report 99-50-I
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report was prepared as part of the World Energy Project of the U.S. Geological
Survey. In the project, the world was divided into 8 regions and 937 geologic
provinces. The provinces have been ranked according to the discovered oil
and gas volumes within each (Klett and others, 1997). Then, 76 "priority"
provinces (exclusive of the U.S. and chosen for their high ranking) and
26 "boutique" provinces (exclusive of the U.S. and chosen for their anticipated
petroleum richness or special regional economic importance) were selected
for appraisal of oil and gas resources. The petroleum geology of these
priority and boutique provinces is described in this series of reports.
The purpose of this effort is to aid in assessing the quantities of oil, gas, and natural gas liquids that have the potential to be added to reserves within the next 30 years. These volumes either reside in undiscovered fields whose sizes exceed the stated minimum-field-size cutoff value for the assessment unit (variable, but must be at least 1 million barrels of oil equivalent) or occur as reserve growth of fields already discovered. The total petroleum system constitutes the basic geologic unit of the oil and gas assessment. The total petroleum system includes all genetically related petroleum that occurs in shows and accumulations (discovered and undiscovered) that has been generated by a pod or by closely related pods of mature source rock and which exists within a limited mappable geologic space, together with the essential mappable geologic elements (source, reservoir, seal, and overburden rocks) that control the fundamental processes of generation, expulsion, migration, entrapment, and preservation of petroleum. The minimum petroleum system is that part of a total petroleum system encompassing discovered shows and accumulations together with the geologic space in which the various essential elements have been proved by these discoveries. An assessment unit is a mappable part of a total petroleum system in which discovered and undiscovered fields constitute a single relatively homogenous population such that the chosen methodology of resource assessment based on estimation of the number and sizes of undiscovered fields is applicable. A total petroleum system might equate to a single assessment unit. If necessary, a total petroleum |
system
may be subdivided into two or more assessment units such that each
assessment unit is sufficiently homogeneous in terms of geology, exploration
considerations, and risk to assess individually.
A graphical depiction of the elements of the a total petroleum system is provided in the form of an event chart that shows the time of deposition of essential rock units; the time processes, such as trap formation, necessary to the accumulation of hydrocarbons took place; the critical moment in the total petroleum system; and the preservation time, if any. A numeric code identifies each region, province, total petroleum system, and assessment unit; these codes are uniform throughout the project and will identify the same item in any of the publications. The code is as follows: Example
Oil and gas reserves quoted in this report are derived from Petroleum Exploration and Production database (Petroconsultants, 1996) and other area reports from Petroconsultants, Inc., unless otherwise noted. Figure(s) in this report that show boundaries of the total petroleum system(s), assessment units, and pods of active source rocks were compiled using geographic information system (GIS) software. Political boundaries and cartographic representations were taken, with permission, from Environmental Systems Research Institute's ArcWorld 1:3 million digital coverage (1992), have no political significance, and are displayed for general reference only. Oil and gas field centerpoints, shown on this(these) figure(s), are reproduced, with permission, from Petroconsultants, 1996. |
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Klett, T.R., Ahlbrandt, T.A., Schmoker, J.W., and Dolton, G.L., 1997, Ranking of the world’s oil and gas provinces by known petroleum volumes: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 97-463, one CD-ROM. Petroconsultants, 1996, Petroleum Exploration and Production Database : Petroconsultants, Inc., P.O. Box 740619, 6600 Sands Point Drive, Houston TX 77274-0619, USA or Petroconsultants, Inc., P.O. Box 152, 24 Chemin de la Mairie, 1258 Perly, Geneva, |
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