PESA Branch Activities
WA Golf Day Gallery
The recent WA golf day at Joondalup Resort was a wonderful way to round up the year. Below is the gallery of some of the most memorable shots.
For details on the event, visit the event page.
Fortunately the forecasts of +40 degree heat on the day of our golf event were unfounded, and everyone enjoyed the day, which actually only maxed out at 33 degrees.
There was lots of fun on course, with the charity hole being run by the committee. Plenty of balls got lost down into the quarry to be eaten by snakes and never seen again.
PESA WA November Evening Talk
Andrew Pitchford, GM Subsurface and Phil Woods, Senior Geophysicist from Western Gas presented their latest findings of the Sasanof Prospect in block WA-519-P, to a sell out crowd at The George in the CBD. The Mentorc Gas discovery by HESS Australia (now Western Gas) opened up the Barrow Delta Topset stratigraphic play to more exploration in the Northern Carnarvon Basin. Mentorc, up to 30% porosity and 12 Darcy permeability, is fill to spill and Sasanof may be where all the spilling gas is going to.
The current p50 estimations after recent inversion studies from DUG, have Sasanof at 24Tcf with a high PoS.
PESA SA/NT Geology of Wine Field Trip – September 2019
By Dr. Simon BrealeyAs is becoming traditional, stalwart devotees of the terroir of the McLaren Vale Wine Region (yes, it’s a bona fide appellation) gathered under a darkening sky in late September to receive the wisdom and tasting notes of Professor Alan Collins of Adelaide University.
Picking up stragglers as we headed south on the 40-minute drive we examined the beautifully-produced geological maps kindly provided by the Dept. Mines (or whatever they were called last week) and met old friends and new.
First stop was on Chapel Hill Road to examine the staggeringly profound unconformity between the Umberatana Group (circa 650 million years old) and the Pleistocene Pirramimma Sandstone of the Seaford Formation (born yesterday).
PESA WA, August Technical Lunch
Chris Fielding, a current editor of Earth Science Reviews, was the guest speaker at the PESA WA Technical Lunch for August. The presentation showcased the critical importance of high quality field work in understanding depositional processes and environments of coastal to shallow marine sandstone bodies in the Cenomanian/Turonian succession of Utah and Wyoming. The talk included details on the mapping and interpretation of Frontier deltas across a 70km by 5km section in the Vernal area of northern Utah and left the audience keen to get out and about and look at some outcrops.
PESA WA Branch Winter Warmer 2019
It’s that blessed time of year when the PESA Winter Warmer provides respite from the weather’s ravages and solace from EOFY traumas. This year, PESA secured the prestigious surroundings of the Celtic Club in West Perth and on a decidedly chilly Friday evening in July a glass of mulled wine on arrival was most welcome. A record turnout of over 80 souls enjoyed the delicious lip-smacking food platters and beverage selection. Conversations were long and florid and went on for many hours, with frivolities only interrupted by the prize raffle drawer.
PESA WA May Evening Talk – Laurence Letki
Laurence Letki’s presentation highlighted wave-equation based techniques, such as full waveform inversion (FWI), as an integral addition to the modeling toolbox. The talk demonstrated how modern computing power allows the use of high frequencies in FWI and the resultant resolution of finer details. The presentation was held at “The George” on Tuesday 21st May. Many thanks to Discover Geoscience, our evening talk sponsor.
PESA WA May Branch Luncheon
“If you’ve got an unconventionals focused geologist in your company, go talk to them, you might be surprised at the learnings applicable to conventional hydrocarbon accumulations”. That was the takeaway from Avon McIntyre’s WA Branch May luncheon talk - “Bursting Source Rock and Strange Hydrocarbon Occurrences Around the World”. The presentation challenged attendees' thoughts on maturation, migration and charge-timing (all may be later than we think) through analysis of unconventional geology. Photos of explosively delaminated source rocks and abandoned gilsonite mines complimented an excellent talk. Many thanks to Spectrum, Searcher and DownUnder Geophysical for sponsoring the event.
PESA WA April Evening Talk – Rosine Riera
Rosine Riera’s talk outlining her current PhD thesis analyzing the Oligo-Miocene subtropical carbonate overburden of the Northern Carnarvon Basin was very well attended. This was PESA WA’s third evening talk for 2019 and was held at “The George” on Tuesday 30th April. Many thanks to Discover Geoscience for sponsoring the evening and to the University of Western Australia for allowing Rosine to present to PESA WA. Perth’s first cold evening for the season saw pre-talk drinks and networking at the bar welcomed by attendees.
PESA QLD Luncheon “Making Good Decisions under Uncertainty” – Prof. Steve Begg
On a sweaty Tuesday morning in Brisbane’s February, a diverse group of industry individuals piled eagerly into a training room at Santos’ office, ready to improve their abilities to “Make Good Decisions under Uncertainty”. Under the wise tutelage of Prof. Steve Begg, a man whose experience in the industry and in academia totals more years than most of our student members, participants from companies including Arrow, Central, Geosolve, Santos, Senex, Shell, and others, quickly found out that decision-making is more complex than a first glance would suggest. Opening the course with a questionnaire revealed just how dire the situation was.