--> Abstract: Rundle Oil Shale Deposit, Queensland, Australia, by A. W. Lindner; #90968 (1977).

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Abstract: Rundle Oil Shale Deposit, Queensland, Australia

A. W. Lindner

Oil shale near The Narrows between Rundle Range and Curtis Island has been known for many years and has been investigated intermittently. The current trend of world price of oil and impending depletion of indigenous petroleum in Australia once again has made oil shale a possible alternative energy source.

The Rundle deposit is in a structurally controlled Tertiary basin approximately 200 sq km in area.

New core drilling in 1974 and 1975 by Southern Pacific Petroleum N.L. in an area of approximately 1,400 ha. revealed 4 units of shale and mudstone, 3 of them with a significant and persistent organic content. Mineralogically the sequence comprises a mixture of quartz, clay minerals, minor carbonate rocks, and varied amounts of kerogen. A varied faunal assemblage and sedimentary features suggest that the deposit accumulated under quiet, essentially reducing conditions in a freshwater lake. In the region of subsurface control, the sequence dips homoclinally westward at from 4 to 10°, apparently as a result of minor tectonic adjustments.

Systematic assaying (modified Fischer method) of cores suggests that an average yield of 89 l of aromatic-based shale oil of 30° API per MT persists at a waste-to-resource ratio of about one to one over the area drilled. The available control implies a dimension to the resource not yet delineated completely, of at least 1,400 million MT.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90968©1977 AAPG-SEPM Annual Convention and Exhibition, Washington, DC