Rangal Supermodel 2015
Renate Sliwa A and Joan Esterle BA Integrated Geoscience Pty Ltd.
B The University of Queensland.
The APPEA Journal 56(2) 598-598 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ15104
Published: 2016
Abstract
More than 6,000 boreholes were compiled to develop a consistent regional scale stratigraphic framework for the Permian Rangal, Baralaba and Bandana coal measures (CMs) within the Bowen Basin. Coal beds and tuff horizons were used as stratigraphic markers, supported by chemostratigraphy and age dating. Results corroborate the general subdivisions of these different coal measures relative to basin location, but increase resolution on migrating depocentres in response to foreland loading and subsidence on coal thickness and splitting patterns. In the north, the Rangal CMs comprise two main seams, correlated as Leichhardt and Vermont. The Yarrabee Tuff is consistently present and splits the Vermont seam. The main Leichhardt seam exhibits relatively simple offset stacking relationships with the underlying Vermont and overlying Phillips seams. In the southwest, the Bandana CMs comprise two to three significant seams—the Aries-Castor, Pollux (Leichhardt equivalent) and Orion—along with the Pisces containing the Yarrabee Tuff. Seams exhibit complex Z splitting and vertical interburden stacking. Locally super-thick seams (crabs) form from convergence of thinner split seams in areas of relative stability over basement highs. In the Taroom Trough, the Baralaba CMs show the greatest response to loading, as seams thin and split along the eastern margin. The variability in the splitting patterns, coupled with the coal measures total thickness, corroborate the extension of the final basin depocentre northward, which was not preserved.
Renate Sliwa is a structural geologist with 26 years’ experience in regional- to mine-scale structural analysis, with a strong focus on coal mining hazards and the interpretation of geophysical data. She gained her PhD from the University of Queensland in 1994, and worked as a consulting geoscientist nationally and overseas before joining the CSIRO in 1999, where she contributed to a detailed regional analysis of the coal measures in the western Bowen Basin as well as a number of mine-scale studies across Australia and India. Renate has been consulting independently to coal and coal seam gas companies since 2008, and joined the University of Queensland as an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow in 2013. She is presently contributing to a number of large regional projects at the university that examine the effects of multiple regional deformation events on coal seam distribution and fracturing in the Bowen and Surat basins. |
Joan Esterle is a coal geologist with a PhD from the University of Kentucky (1990). Following a career with CSIRO (1992–2008) and GeoGAS Runge (2008–10), she joined the University of Queensland full time, taking up the chair of the Vale-UQ Coal Geoscience Program. The group has grown to more than six senior researchers and some 20 undergrad and post-graduate students working across a range of projects in 2015. Her main research questions focus on geological controls on the origins and distribution of coal and gas in coal, gas and coal production, overburden geotechnical variability, and coal material properties. These applied research projects are underpinned by a fundamental understanding of peat and coal formation. Joan’s projects are supported through the Australian Coal Association, the Centre for Coal Seam Gas, Australian Low Emissions Coal fund, the Department of Natural Resources and Mines, and a suite of companies. |
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