The Goldwyer Formation is widely known from the subsurface Canning Basin, Western Australia. Microfossils of acritarchs, chitinozoans, and conodonts, and macrofossil remains, indicate it was deposited in a normal marine environment in late Early to Middle Ordovician times (Late Arenig to Llanvirn). In Exploration Permit areas 143 and 225, the Formation is subdivided into four lithologic members, informally designated Units 1 to 4 in ascending stratigraphic order. Horizons within Unit 4, immediately underlying the prospective reservoir dolostones of the Nita Formation, are organic rich with between 0.5 and 6 per cent total organic carbon. Generative potential of these horizons, determined by Rock-Eval, averages 13 litres of hydrocarbon per tonne. A conservative estimate of the cumulative thickness of source rock with hydrogen index (HI) values of 300-900, using whole core fluorescence intensity, is 10 m. Thus, under optimum maturation conditions there is potential for generation of an estimated 61 × 109 barrels of liquids from Unit 4 within EP 143 and EP 225. These figures are based on an integrated analysis of 44 core samples from four fully cored 'slim holes' and cores from one conventional oil well. Kero-gen types and measures of organic maturity cannot be determined accurately from the standard Rock-Eval HI/Tmax crossplot. The dominant oil-prone kerogen in Unit 4 is Gloeocapsamorpha prisca Zalessky 1917 and palynological and gas chromatographic/mass spectrometric studies correlate it with Ordovician kerogens from the Baltic Basin, Michigan and Illinois basins, and Amadeus Basin. Gas chromatographic/mass spectrometric source rock-oil correlations show that oils from the Williston Basin (USA), Canning Basin, and Amadeus Basin are derived predominantly from G. prisca. Palaeogeographic reconstructions suggest that these areas lay within 5° north and south of an Ordovician equator and so provide data for further prediction of possible rich hydrocarbon source areas.
Decisions related to the production of lithic technology involve landscape-scale patterns of resource acquisition and transport that are not observable in assemblages from any one single site. In this study, we describe the stone artifacts from a discrete cluster of stone artifacts assigned to the Robberg technocomplex (22-16 ka) at the open-air locality of Uitspankraal 9 (UPK9), which is located near two major sources of toolstone in the Doring River catchment of Western Cape, South Africa. OSL dating of the underlying sediment unit provides a terminus post quem age of 27.5 ± 2.1 ka for the assemblage. Comparison of near-source artifact reduction at UPK9 with data from three rock shelter assemblages within the Doring watershed – Putslaagte 8 (PL8), Klipfonteinrand Rock Shelter (KFR), and Mertenhof Rock Shelter (MRS) – suggests that “gearing-up” with cores and blanks occurred along the river in anticipation of transport into the wider catchment area. The results reveal an integrated system of technological supply in which raw materials from different sources were acquired, reduced, and transported in different ways throughout the Doring River region.
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