Revisiting the rocks discovers turbidites and a new exploration play in the Penola Trough, Otway Basin, South Australia

Sharon Tiainen is a graduate of the University of Adelaide and has an Honours degree in petroleum geology and geophysics. She has over 25 years’ experience in the upstream oil and gas industry having worked in exploration, appraisal, development, and production roles. She has worked acreage in Algeria, Austria, Australia, Ecuador, Germany, India, Libya, Malaysia, Morocco, Myanmar, the Netherlands, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Pakistan, the Philippines, Romania, Tunisia, Turkey, the UAE, and the United Kingdom. In 2009 she established her own company and most recently she joined the South Australia Department for Energy and Mines and is a member of EAGE, SPE and PESA.

Rob Kirk graduated from the University of Adelaide (BSc Hons) and the University of WA (MSc) – combining geology with geophysics. He has four decades of industry experience in seismic and sequence stratigraphy having worked with SA Oil and Gas, Occidental, BHP, and Woodside as well as 20 years consulting. He has worked some 40 basins worldwide. Rob has given public and inhouse industry courses on seismic stratigraphy for 30 years. Rob jointly won the 1991 AAPG Best Paper Award, was 1993 and 2014 PESA Distinguished Lecturer, 1994 Keynote Speaker at GCSSEPM, Houston and has had regular articles in the PESA Journal. He is a member of PESA and the AAPG.

Dr Chris Cubitt graduated from the University of Adelaide with a PhD in clastic diagenesis and sedimentology. He has more than two decades of industry experience in reservoir and regional geology working basins worldwide. In early 2023 he joined South Australia’s Department for Energy and Mining as a Deputy Director. Chris is an author of more than 20 publications, and is a member of PESA, IAS and the EAGE.

Tim Rady is a geophysicist with 18 years’ experience in the oil & gas industry, specialising in seismic interpretation, play analysis, prospect maturation and opportunity evaluation. He has worked for Santos, Premier Oil and Total Energies on a broad range of new ventures, exploration and development projects across Australia, SE Asia, Brazil, PNG, Bangladesh, and Norway. Tim currently consults to the E&P industry and is leading the subsurface technical aspects of entX Limited’s underground hydrogen storage project. Tim holds a BSc (Hons) in Petroleum Geophysics from the Australian School of Petroleum and an MBA from the London Business School.