Cooper GBA Region

On 29 November 2017 the Cooper GBA region in south west Queensland and north east South Australia was announced as the first region selected for assessment under the Geological and Bioregional Assessment Program.

The Cooper Basin spans an area of about 130,000 square kilometres and is located entirely within the Lake Eyre drainage catchment. About two-thirds of the region is located in south-west Queensland and the remainder in north-east South Australia and far north-west New South Wales.

The Cooper GBA region incorporates the Cooper–Eromanga Basin hydrocarbon system. It is Australia’s premier onshore oil and gas producing area and, as such, its geology is relatively well understood.  The Cooper Basin is being actively explored for shale and tight gas along with gas from deep dry coals.

Much of the Cooper Basin region is part of the Cooper Creek–Bulloo river basin. Cooper Creek and the Thomson, Barcoo and Bulloo rivers are the major streams in this basin. Cooper Creek flows some 1500 kilometres south-west through Coongie Lakes Ramsar Wetland to Kati Thanda—Lake Eyre and during periods of high flow its floodplain can exceed 15,300 square kilometres with a width exceeding 60 kilometres.