Canning Basin and Global Palaeozoic Petroleum Systems—a Review

Abstract

There are more than 131 giant and super-giant oil and gas fields with Palaeozoic source and reservoir that are similar to the Canning Basin. These include Palaeozoic basins of North America, North Africa, and the North Caspian Basin of Kazakhstan and Russia.The productivity of these Palaeozoic petroleum systems depends on timing of generation and preservation of charge. Thick Ordovician, Permian, and Triassic evaporite deposits played a very important role in creating and preserving the North American, north Caspian, and north African giant oil and gas fields, respectively.The Mesozoic–Tertiary charged Palaeozoic systems are typically more productive than the Palaeozoic charged systems as exemplified by the north African basins.The Ordovician sourced and reservoired giant oil fields of the North American Mid-Continent are also highly productive. Within the Canning Basin, Ordovician sourced oil has been recovered on the Barbwire Terrace (in Dodonea–1, Percival–1 and Solanum–1) on the Dampier Terrace (in Edgar Range–1 and Pictor–1) and along the Admiral Bay Fault Zone (in Cudalgarra–1, Great Sandy–1, and Leo–1).The Canning Basin may be the least explored of the known Palaeozoic basins with proven petroleum systems. The Palaeozoic basins of North America are the most explored with 500-wells/10,000 km2 compared to the Canning Basin with only 4-wells/10,000 km2.The presence of five oil fields, numerous oil and gas shows and the well density in the Canning Basin (200 wells in 530,000 km2) suggests that further exploration is warranted. Critical analysis of the distribution of source rock, reservoir, seal, timing of generation versus trap formation and post accumulation modification for each tectonic unit of the Canning Basin is required.

The Magnitude of Exhumation in the Kidson Sub-Basin, Western Australia, Usingthermal and Compaction Techniques

“…The Canning Basin is the largest sedimentary basin in Western Australia covering an approximate area of 530,000 km 2 . The basin is divided into an onshore portion described to be an intra-cratonic system and an offshore portion which is described to be part of a passive margin system (Bradshaw et al, 2012;Carlsen and Ghori, 2005;Forman et al, 1981;Western Australia Department of Mines and Petroleum, 2021). The onshore intra-cratonic system constitutes two major northwest to southeast trending depositional centres (Fig.…”

“…The onshore Canning Basin, which hosts the Kidson Sub-basin, is an intra-cratonic rift basin that developed in the Early Ordovician (Bradshaw et al, 2012;Carlsen and Ghori, 2005;Forman and Wales, 1981;Hashimoto et al, 2018;Shaw et al, 1994). After the basin's formation, The onshore Canning Basin underwent several major basin-wide periods of tectonic evolution involving extension, subsidence, inversion and exhumation (uplift and erosion) which together resulted in the development of the individual depocenters and tectonic features in the basin (Hashimoto et al, 2018;Shaw et al, 1994).…”

“…In the next section, we describe the geological setting of the Kidson Sub-basin. Carlsen and Ghori, 2005). Insert (bottom left corner) is the map of Australia showing the approximate location of the Canning Basin (red box) (modified from Bradshaw et al, 2012).…”

The Magnitude of Exhumation in the Kidson Sub-basin, Western Australia, using Thermal and Compaction Techniques

“…The Canning Basin is the largest sedimentary basin in Western Australia covering an approximate area of 530,000 km 2 . The basin is divided into an onshore portion described to be an intra-cratonic system and an offshore portion which is described to be part of a passive margin system (Bradshaw et al, 2012;Carlsen and Ghori, 2005;Forman and Wales, 1981;Western Australia Department of Mines and Petroleum, 2021). The onshore intra-cratonic system is constituted by two major northwest to southeast trending depositional centres (Fig.…”

“…The onshore Canning Basin, which hosts the Kidson Sub-basin, is an intra-cratonic rift basin that developed in the Early Ordovician (Bradshaw et al, 2012;Carlsen and Ghori, 2005;Forman and Wales, 1981;Hashimoto et al, 2018;Shaw et al, 1994). After the basin's formation, the onshore Canning Basin underwent several major basin-wide active tectonic periods involving extension, subsidence, inversion and exhumation (uplift and erosion) which resulted in the development of the individual depocenters and tectonic features in the basin (Hashimoto et al, 2018;Shaw et al, 1994).…”