The Palaeogeographic and Palaeoclimatic Evolution of Australasia: Palaeo-Productivity Modelling and the Predictive Mapping of Source Rock Environments

Abstract

The distribution of source rock environments and the lateral variation in source quality are significant uncertainties for exploration, particularly in little explored and frontier basins. Modelling the processes of organic matter productivity, dilution and preservation to predict the distribution of source rock environments requires a range of palaeogeographic and oceanographic parameters. These have been derived using deformable Plate Wizard reconstructions, global data constrained palaeogeographic mapping, state-of-the-art palaeo-Earth systems modelling (UK Met Office HadCM3 palaeoclimate model) and an unstructured mesh model to simulate palaeotides (Imperial College, UK, ICOM tide model). Palaeogeographic mapping, coupled with earth systems modelling also provides a detailed history of the break-up of Gondwana and associated palaeoclimatic variation. This includes the development of new Australasian basins, drainage basin evolution and the data required for the quantification of clastic sediment flux. It also gives the regional geohistory of Australasia a global context. Mesozoic marine source rock environments are predicted in Australasian basins and alternative models for the opening of deep water connections in the Southern Ocean, and the development of the circum-polar current reveal key controls on palaeo-productivity systems that have implications for the development of Cenozoic source rock environments.

AAPG Datapages/Search and Discovery Article #90217 © 2015 International Conference & Exhibition, Melbourne, Australia, September 13-16, 2015