This report is a description of velocity data acquired during the summer of 2006/07 on Geoscience Australia's seismic marine reflection, refraction and potential field survey GA302 over the Capel and Faust Basins, Lord Howe Rise.
The survey was the final phase of the Australian Government's Big New Oil initiative commenced in 2003 to support acreage release in frontier basins. Previous data over the region are sparsely located, and the present survey will provide explorers with high quality data acquired and processed to modern standards.
The Lord Howe Rise is thought to be a continental fragment detached from Australia during the formation of the Tasman Sea. The Capel and Faust Basins are of interest as possible frontier petroleum provinces, and the present work is aimed at improving the confidence of sediment thickness estimation, a critical parameter in evaluating of prospectivity.
The study reviews the seismic reflection data from survey GA302, the sonobuoy refraction data acquired, and the stacking velocities from the seismic reflection processing.