Author | Chris Cubitt: Geological Survey of South Australia
Chris Cubitt of the Geological Survey South Australia (GSSA), hosted the 2026 PESA SA/NT core workshop at the SA Drill Core Library on Friday November 21st, 2025, (Fig. 1). This year’s event was well attended by industry, government and academia focussing on the eastern Warburton Basin (Daralingie Shelf area) with the aim to produce a quick look GDE map and form an opinion on the basin’s prospectivity.
John Kaldi, President of SA/NT branch was delighted to be able to honour some of their long standing members with certificates to mark the achievement.
Anthony Western of Santos gave the SA/NT Branch a very interesting and informative talk on“Moomba CCS – delivering a world leading CO 2 storage project”.
The Moomba Carbon Capture and Storage project is a large-scale CCS project at the MoombaGas Plant in the Cooper Basin, South Australia. New facilities were constructed to capture,dehydrate, transport and permanently store CO 2 emissions that were previously vented toatmosphere, and depleted gas fields were selected as the initial storage reservoirs. Five newinjection wells were drilled, and existing wells were re-purposed as monitoring wells to enable theMonitoring and Verification (M&V) plan including environmental assurance monitoring.
The Petroleum Exploration Society of Australia (SA/NT) branch hosted Henry Posamentier on the 3 and 4 November 2025 when he presented both a 2-day workshop and a luncheon meeting. His workshop and luncheon presentation delivered a masterclass on seismic stratigraphy and seismic geomorphology and was based on Henry’s over 50 years of global experience and pioneering work in developing the contemporary approach to sequence stratigraphic analyses, integrating sedimentology, stratigraphy, and depositional systems analysis.
The workshop attracted 26 registered attendees and the lunch presentation even more with an additional 24 registered.
Not to be outdone by WA Branch, SA/NT Branch held their Winter Warmer on 7 August at Prohibition Gin Distillery, in Adelaide’s CBD. Over 40 hearty souls braved the cold evening in the distillery’s tin shed to sample 3 different gins (Classic, Blood Orange & Field Blend Shiraz); cleansing ales were available for purchase as well. The proprietor provided detailed information on each of the gins (and ales) and gave us suggested drinking instructions. Unsurprisingly, most members did not require much of the latter. Pizzas a-plenty were provided to sop up the drink.
Sharon Tiainen (left) and Paul Strong (right), receive vote of thanks from Rob Kirk (centre) for their stimulating SA/NT branch luncheon talk
“New Geological Studies Leading to 2025 Acreage Release in the Polda and Otway Basins, SA” The July 31 meeting was attended by 35 participants
The Polda Basin is a 10,000 km2 Neoproterozoic to Jurassic basin covering the central western portion of the Eyre Peninsula of South Australia and extends westwards into the Great Australian Bight.
The June technical lunch meeting of PESA SA Branch featured a fascinating presentation by Dr Markus Häring (Consultant) on “The impact of triggered earthquakes of the Basel geothermal project 2006 on Engineered Geothermal Systems.” Dr Häring was the Director of Geothermal Explorers and faced the criminal court of Basel City for causing material damage and flooding as a result of the induced seismicity - fortunately he was cleared of the charge. Dr Häring will present an expanded version of this talk as a PESA Webinar later this year, so stay tuned.
The presentation is timely as there's been a resurgence in geothermal energy exploration in SA with new licences granted over the last few years to test new exploration concepts and technologies.
The HICCUP cricket tournament, sponsored by PESA (Petroleum Exploration Society of Australia), has a rich 45-year history as a social tradition in the South Australian Oil & Gas industry, bringing together government, private, and academic personnel.
HICCUP is appealing due to the relaxed environment of playing a social, yet competitive, format of cricket after work in the Adelaide parklands while providing a fantastic avenue for strengthening working relationships between colleagues and peers from opposition teams.
Teams play with 12 players, and everyone gets to have a bowl and a hit in the 20 over format.
On 27Th Feb James Komenza gave a talk to the South Australian Branch titled “Seismic interpretation of the Petrel sub-basin for CO2 storage opportunity (G-11-AP)” The image above shows Dr Paul Strong awarding an appreciation gift to him.
The Branch was also pleased to award Cecilia Vanina Loyola (Uni Adelaide student) with the 2024 SA/NT Scholarship prize. This image below shows Dr. Mark Bunch (Uni Adelaide and chair of SA/NT Branch Scholarships committee) presenting it to her.
On a glorious spring weekend members and friends of the SA/NT Branch were able to participate in a self-drive field trip led by Rhodri Johns and Elinor Alexander. This was a joint field trip with PESA SA/NT, GSA and the Field Geology Club of Adelaide. It was an opportunity to investigate the Cambrian evolution of South Australia through spectacular seismic scale coastal exposures along the west coast of the Fleurieu peninsula.
Although a two-day field trip participants had the option of participating in either or both days.
The first day was spent examining the carbonate ramp deposits of the Sellick Hill Formation and the clastic turbidites of the Carrickalinga Head Formation at Myponga and Carrickalinga.