WA

PESA WA Christmas Luncheon and AGM 2025

09/03/2026 Posted by Helen

PESA WA held their annual AGM and Christmas Luncheon at The Hilton on 18 th December, with over 135 people attending. Past events held during 2025 were summarised by Fiona Burns (PESA WA president), while Peter Hoiles (Treasurer) provided an overview of the years’ finances. During 2025, PESA WA held regular monthly talks, as well as numerous workshops and courses provided by energy experts from Australia, and from overseas such as Mark Bentley, Henry Posamentier, John Holbrock and Steve Hasiotis.

Our guest speaker, Julia Davies, is energy industry professional with over forty years of experience in the industry.

Perth building stones walking tour

09/02/2026 Posted by Helen

Write up by Helen Debenham. Photos from Helen Debenham and Karen Pandya.

On Friday night (6th February) a group of PESA members, led by Stephen Molyneux, and ably assisted by Peter Haines and Leon Normore from the geological survey, wandered through the streets of Perth looking at building stones and other geological wonders.

If you are sad to have missed this, you can take a look at the guide below that talks you through a self guided similar tour.

https://dmpbookshop.eruditetechnologies.com.au/product/stepping-stones-two-self-guided-geology-trails-in-the-city.do

Our intrepid walkers met up in the Melbourne Hotel on Hay street, where, as you can see in the image below, there is some lovely amygdaloidal basalt in the passageway down towards the toilets.

WA PESA-ASEG Golf day 2025 at Wanneroo

09/12/2025 Posted by Helen

The annual ASEG-PESA golf classic event was held on 4th December in glorious weather at Wanneroo Golf club where nearly 92 golfers turned out to compete for glory and prizes.

We are happy to announce that the results were:

Team Winners

1st – Kurt Chambers, Rodger Edgecombe, Murray Burling, Blair Berglin

2nd – John Coffin, Peter Chia, Darren Lee and Edward Coffin

3rd – Alex Karvelas, Kevin Moran. Aaron Pederson, Adam Vonk

Individual Winners

Nearest to Pin sponsored by Xcalibur – Greg Turner

Nearest to Pin sponsored by Delft Inversion – David Christianson

Nearest to Pin sponsored by NRG – Aaron Pederson

Henry Posamentier touches down in WA

04/12/2025 Posted by Rachel

Henry Posamentier presented a 2-day course in Perth on 6-7th November at PanPacific. His workshop delivered a masterclass on seismic stratigraphy and seismicgeomorphology and was based on Henry’s over 50 years of global experience andpioneering work in developing the contemporary approach to sequence stratigraphicanalyses. This attracted 18 attendees.

He also spoke at Faradays in Perth on evening of 6 th November.

PESA WA Technical talk and Core Workshop with Brian Willis

04/11/2025 Posted by Helen

PESA WA October Technical Evening Talk —

By Matt Fittall

A core group of PESA geoscientists gathered at The Globe on the evening of October 2nd to learn about the impact of new numerical modelling of deposition in wave influenced deltas in the interpretation of deltaic sequences and their facies distributions. Dr Willis and his co-workers showed how this work challenges the paradigm of a prograding equilibrium shoreface profile and a gradual upward- coarsening facies progression with a sharp-based shoreface succession generated by a relative sea-level fall.

In his presentation Brian Willis demonstrated that differences in...

Tagged: core workshop, wave influenced deltas

PESA WA October Technical Lunch — Fault Timing & Depocentre Development in the Northern Perth Basin

04/11/2025 Posted by Helen

The Petroleum Exploration Society of Australia (PESA WA) held its October Technical Lunch on 16 October 2025 Parmelia Hilton Perth, featuring a presentation by Chris Watts. The event attracted around 50 attendees from across the upstream sector, including representatives from Shell, Woodside, Santos, Chevron, and other leading energy companies in the Perth Basin.Chris delivered an informative and well-structured presentation highlighting the geological evolution of the Northern Perth Basin and the implications for exploration and resource development. His talk generated strong interest and engagement among participants.

WA YP event

04/11/2025 Posted by Helen

PESA hosted a very successful YP event after the Australasian Exploration Geoscience Conference (AEGC) conference in Perth in September jointly with AIG, SPE and ASEG.

With over 70 attendees from both Perth and interstate, it was a wonderful evening of networking with both familiar and new faces.

A big thank you to our panellists who all volunteered their time after a packed week presenting at the conference: Ishtar Barranco (CCS Geologist, Chevron), Donna Sewell (Consulting Geologist, AIG WA Brach Chair) and Richard Lilly (Exploration Geologist, The University of Adelaide)

WA Basin’s workshop to be held 1st-2nd Dec at Curtin University

10/10/2025 Posted by Helen

The 2025 Basins Workshop will take place on Monday 1 and Tuesday 2 December 2025 at Curtin University, Perth in association with PESA WA Branch. The aim of the workshop is to provide an informal forum for the exchange of insights and ideas regarding the evolution of sedimentary basins in Australia and around the world, and the diverse resources they contain, including hydrocarbons, minerals, geothermal energy, natural hydrogen, and the potential for CO2 and hydrogen storage.

Talks are limited to 10 minutes in duration, with ample time for discussion, so we are looking for thought provoking ideas, rather than polished conference presentations.

WA evening talk – US Double act on fluvial systems

09/09/2025 Posted by Helen

A good crowd again assembled for Perth PESA evening talk on August 14, a double act on fluvial systems by John Holbrook (Texas Christian University) on the “Back-water Effect” on fluvial systems and Steve Hasiotis (University of Kansas) on the Neoichnology of the De Grey ephemeral river delta, Northwest WA

John Holbrook’s talk on the backwater effect provided an interesting discussion on fluvial architecture styles and an emerging tool and a work flow for predicting reservoir architecture, dimensions, volumes and heterogeneity in fluvial systems.

Steve Hasiotis described the diagnostic patterns of plant and animal traces (and diversity),...

Exciting future events coming to WA

08/08/2025 Posted by Helen

We also have really exciting visitors coming to Perth during the coming months. On Thursday 2nd October Dr Brian Willis will be presenting an evening talk followed by a core workshop at Perth Core Library with Simon Lang and Tobi Payenberg. This trip is supported by Santos Ltd.

On the 6th and 7th November, we are delighted to be hosting Dr Henry Posamentier here in Perth. Henry is running a 2-day course entitled “Seismic Geomorphology and Seismic Stratigraphy: Fundamentals and Workflows”.