The Cooper Basin is a Permian-Triassic

sediment Sediment is a naturally occurring material that is broken down by processes of weathering and erosion, and is subsequently transported by the action of wind, water, or ice or by the force of gravity acting on the particles. For example, sand ...

ary geological basin in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

. The basin is located mainly in the southwestern part of

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , establishe ...

and extends into northeastern

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest o ...

. It is named after the

Cooper Creek The Cooper Creek (formerly Cooper's Creek) is a river in the Australian states of Queensland and South Australia. It was the site of the death of the explorers Burke and Wills in 1861. It is sometimes known as the Barcoo River from one of its ...

which is an ephemeral river that runs into

Lake Eyre Lake Eyre ( ), officially known as Kati Thanda–Lake Eyre, is an endorheic lake in east-central Far North South Australia, some north of Adelaide. The shallow lake is the depocentre of the vast endorheic Lake Eyre basin, and contains ...

. For most of its extent, it is overlain by the

Eromanga Basin The Eromanga Basin is a large Mesozoic sedimentary basin in central and northern Australia. It covers parts of Queensland, the Northern Territory, South Australia, and New South Wales, and is a major component of the Great Artesian Basin. The E ...

. It covers 130,000 km². The surface of the Cooper Basin is mostly desert, including parts of the

Simpson Desert The Simpson Desert is a large area of dry, red sandy plain and dunes in the Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland in central Australia. It is the fourth-largest Australian desert, with an area of . The desert is underlain by the ...

, the

Channel Country The Channel Country is a region of outback Australia mostly in the state of Queensland but also in parts of South Australia, Northern Territory and New South Wales. The name comes from the numerous intertwined rivulets that cross the region, ...

and

Sturt Stony Desert Sturt Stony Desert (previously Sturt's Stony Desert) is an area in the north-east of South Australia, far south western border area of Queensland and the far west of New South Wales. It was named by Charles Sturt in 1844, while he was trying ...

. Oil and gas exploration of the basin began in 1962.

Energy resources

Oil and natural gas

The Cooper Basin has the most important on-shore

petroleum Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...

and

natural gas Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbon d ...

deposits in

. The oil and gas window is located 1,250 m below the surface and was originally discovered in the 1960s (although there are larger oil and gas deposits off-shore). The first commercial discovery of gas occurred in 1963. It includes Australia's largest onshore

oil field A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presen ...

, the Jackson oil field. This field was discovered in 1981. Pipelines transport gas to the major markets of

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...

Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...

and

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...

. Overall about 1,800 petroleum wells have been drilled. The largest producer in the basin is

Santos Limited Santos Ltd. (South Australia Northern Territory Oil Search) is an Australian oil and gas exploration and production company, with its headquarters in Adelaide, South Australia. It owns liquefied natural gas (LNG), pipeline gas, and oil assets. ...

with its main production facility at

Moomba, South Australia Moomba is a company town located in the Australian state of South Australia within the gazetted locality of Gidgealpa about north of the state capital of Adelaide. It is operated by Santos Limited for the purpose of exploration and processing ...

at the head of the

Moomba Adelaide Pipeline System The Moomba Adelaide Pipeline System is a natural gas pipeline delivering gas from the Cooper Basin gas wells near Moomba to Adelaide, with spur pipelines to Angaston and Whyalla. It can also receive gas from Southeastern Queensland through the ...

. The oil and gas deposits in the Cooper Basin tend to be fairly small and fragmentary, but highly economical given the relatively low cost of drilling and completion. Overall there are 160

gas field A petroleum reservoir or oil and gas reservoir is a subsurface accumulation of hydrocarbons contained in porous or fractured rock formations. Such reservoirs form when kerogen (ancient plant matter) is created in surrounding rock by the presence ...

s and 75

s in production containing about 630 producing gas wells and more than 340 producing oil wells. There are many small listed companies exploring for additional deposits in the region. Some of these companies are Austin Exploration Limited, Cooper Energy,

Beach Petroleum Limited Beach Energy Limited is an Australian oil and gas exploration and production company based in Adelaide, South Australia. Formerly known as Beach Petroleum, the company changed its name to Beach Energy in December 2009. It is a component of the S&P ...

, Senex Energy, Bridgeport Energy, Strike Energy, Bengal Energy, Acer Energy, Magellan, Impress Energy, Red Sky Energy, and many others.

Geothermal

Within the basin, exploration companies have conducted extensive research to discover if the area is appropriate for large-scale production. They have drilled and measured the temperature in many holes, estimating that hot granite rocks at 3.5 km deep are 240 °C. The Cooper Basin has been selected for the site of a geothermal project, because these rocks are the hottest in the world at economic drilling depths and away from volcanoes. During reservoir stimulation in 2003, induced seismic events up to magnitude 3.7 were observed.

Impact crater

The Basin hides an

impact crater An impact crater is a circular depression in the surface of a solid astronomical object formed by the hypervelocity impact of a smaller object. In contrast to volcanic craters, which result from explosion or internal collapse, impact crater ...

created "around 300 million years ago." Its discovery by scientist Tonguç Uysal was revealed in October 2010. The crater's "minimum diameter is 80 km", making it one of the largest of Australia's 30 to 50 known or suspected craters.

References

{{reflist Geology of South Australia Geology of Queensland Oil fields of Australia Sedimentary basins of Australia South West Queensland Energy in South Australia Energy in Queensland

Energy resources

Oil and natural gas

Geothermal

Impact crater

See also

References