terrane models

Northern Bowen Basin Project

BACKGROUND

The northern Bowen Basin Project is collaborative research project between the CSIRO Exploration and Mining and the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines (DNRM). The DNRM acquired 30,000 line km of airborne magnetics and radiometrics in 2002 to add to existing surveys further east. The data was flown at 400m line-spacing and 80m flying height, and covers the structurally complex northern Bowen Basin. The chief investigators for this project were Renate Sliwa (CSIRO Exploration & Mining) and Jon Draper (DNRM).

OBJECTIVE

The objective of the project was to update the current 1:500,000 scale geological model of the northern Bowen Basin, by using the new airborne geophysical survey as the base tool to integrate existing data with new data and knowledge.

OUTCOMES

DNRM: A new structurally focussed map of the northern Bowen Basin that adds further value to their investment in the acquisition of regionally extensive geophysical datasets.

CSIRO: The project builds on the recently completed Supermodel 2000 study, which focussed on the world class economic coal measures of the north-western Bowen Basin. It provides insights to the northern Bowen Basin that has a potential to be linked in future with the seismic horizon model for the southern Bowen Basin built by Geoscience Australia. The results deliver a contribution into the CSIRO GlassEarth project.

Coal and coal seam gas industry: Better ground characterisation for planning new mines and possible exploration targets.

SOLID GEOLOGY MAP OF THE NORTHERN BOWEN BASIN (FREE DOWNLOAD)

The main deliverable of the project is a new structurally focussed map that can be downloaded freely in two formats:
Solid geology map PDF format (9.3 Mb)
Solid geology map EMF format (7 Mb)
The geological interpretation layers can be downloaded in shape file format:
Interpreted geology GIS data ESRI Shape files (764 kb)