- Title
- Triassic reservoir characteristics of the Bird's Head, New Guinea, Indonesia : New insight from provenance study
- Creator
- Gunawan, Indra; Hall, Robert; Sapiie, Benyamin
- Date
- 2014
- Type
- Text; Conference paper
- Identifier
- http://researchonline.federation.edu.au/vital/access/HandleResolver/1959.17/161014
- Identifier
- vital:12413
- Identifier
-
https://doi.org/10.2523/IPTC-18069-MS
- Abstract
- The Bird's Head area of New Guinea is underlain by Australian continental crust and has relatively complete Palaeozoic to Recent stratigraphic record. One of the siliciclastic formations of the Bird's Head is the Tipuma Formation. Its age has been estimated as Triassic to Jurassic and is a potentially important hydrocarbon reservoir. New fieldwork was carried out, complemented by analysis of light and heavy minerals, U-Pb zircon geochronology, and quartz CL luminescence study. The Tipuma Formation was previously dated only by its stratigraphic position and was suggested to have been deposited in a continental passive margin. This study shows sandstones and conglomerates were sourced from acid volcanic, metamorphic, and recycled sedimentary rocks to the north, and from the North Australian Craton. Cathodoluminescence study on detrital quartz supports the importance of the important of volcanic quartz. The quartz provenance of sandstones from the Lower, Middle and Upper Members of the Tipuma Formation are dominated by low-T metamorphic and volcanic with little plutonic origin and there is some variation with stratigraphic position and in the Middle Member the abundance of volcanic quartz declines. The youngest zircon ages indicate it was deposited in the Triassic. Permo-Triassic (205-275 Ma), Neoproterozoic (c. 975 Ma), Early Mesoproterozoic (1.4-1.6 Ga), and Paleopro-terozoic (1.8-2.0 Ga) populations, with a few grains of Archaean age (2.8-3.2 Ga) characterized most Tipuma Formation sandstones. The Tipuma Formation was probably not deposited in a simple continental block setting and was influenced by volcanic activity in the Bird's Head during its deposition. The long-lived Palaeozoic volcanic activity interpreted to indicate subduction of the palaeo-Pacific oceanic plate under the Australian continent associated with an Andean-type active margin. The decline of the abundance of volcanic quartz, Permo-Triassic zircons, and increase in Carboniferous and Proterozoic zircons within the Middle Member indicate a reduced contribution of sediment from the arc and an increased contribution of sediment from northern Australia.
- Publisher
- Society of Petroleum Engineers
- Relation
- International Petroleum Technology Conference 2014, IPTC 2014 p. 3109-3117
- Rights
- © 2014, International Petroleum Technology Conference.
- Rights
- This metadata is freely available under a CCO license
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