Energy Sources Part A-recovery Utilization and Environmental Effects, Vol.29, No.8, 741-751, 2007
Exhumation studies in hydrocarbon exploration
The Cooper-Eromanga Basins of South Australia and Queensland are not at their maximum burial-depth due to Late Cretaceous-Tertiary and Late Triassic Early Jurassic exhumation. This study reviews evidence of exhumation and palaeothermal history in the Cooper-Eromanga Basins based on previous apatite fission track analysis and fluid inclusion homogenization temperatures. Previous works using these techniques have tended to focus their research in the palaeo-thermal history, rather than exhumation magnitudes, indeed thermal annealing witnessed by apatite fission track analysis and associated with the recent/present high geothermal gradients precludes estimation of exhumation at the Cooper-Eromanga Basins unconformity. The relative importance of hot fluids, burial/exhumation and/or other heating processes is unclear. Nonetheless, where reported, exhumation results from apatite fission track analysis and fluid inclusion homogenization temperatures are in a broad agreement with those from compaction analysis.
Keywords:apatite fission track analysis;Australia;Cooper-Eromanga;exhumation;fluid inclusion homogenization temperatures