The theme of the 42nd Symposium is "Understanding the Sydney Basin Today is the key to Tomorrow’s Sustainability", focussing upon both the changing times in the industry, changing environmental considerations, and the sedimentary nature of the basin.
Initiated by the University of Newcastle in 1966, the long-running series of symposia on ‘Advances in the Study of the Sydney Basin’ has become a well established focal point for the discussion of research findings and other studies of academic, industrial and community interest for one of the most significant geological provinces in Australia.
The Sydney Basin forms part of the Sydney-Gunnedah Bowen Basin, a major foreland basin system which extends from southern coastal New South Wales to Central Queensland. This Permo-Triassic basin is bounded by older Palaeozoic rocks of the Lachlan Fold Belt, to the south and west, and the New England Fold belt to the northeast. The basin has both an onshore and offshore component which extends to the edge of the continental shelf. Three major cities are located in the region - Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong. There has been a long history of coal exploration and mining within the basin, with several thousand boreholes that have been drilled. Petroleum exploration has been modest but the basin was considered prospective for oil, gas, coal seam methane and oil shale.
A wide range of topics are presented at the ‘Sydney Basin Symposium’, including:
• Coal Geology
• Coal Quality & Utilisation
• Climate change
• Community Engagement and Social Responsibility
• Environmental
• Exploration
• Gas and petroleum geology
• Geophysics
• Hydrogeology
• Igneous geology
• Mine engineering
• Mine geology (mining and extractive industries)
• Mine management and rehabilitation
• State of the industry now and in the future
• Structural geology
