Journal articles on the topic 'Walloon coal measures'

The Queensland coal seam gas industry has grown over the last 12 years. During this time the vast majority of exploration wells have targeted the Late Permian coal measures in the Bowen and Galilee Basins. These formations have been the major target because they contain coals with a vitrinite reflectance ranging above 0.7%. This range has always been seen as the main period for methane generation.As well as containing vast quantities of Permian coal, Queensland also has vast quantities of Middle Jurassic coals within its Mesozoic Basins. These coals have received little-to-no exploration for their coal seam gas potential as they have always been interpreted as being immature for gas generation.Over 550 petroleum exploration wells drilled in the Mesozoic Surat Basin of eastern Queensland were reviewed to determine the coal volume of the intersected Walloon Coal Measures. A significant number have intersected large volumes of sub-bituminous to high volatile bituminous coals, in seams ranging up to 11.7 m in thickness. While the individual seams are not laterally persistent, the coal packages can be traced over hundreds of kilometres of the eastern Surat Basin.While only one well has tested the gas content, gas quality and saturation of the Walloon Coal Measures, numerous water bores have reported gas flows from the zone, and petroleum wells intersecting the formation have recorded high mud gas readings during drilling.The relatively shallow depth of the unit over much of the basin, the thickness of the coal packages, the proximity to major gas trunk pipelines and markets make the Walloon Coal Measures an ideal target for the next generation of coal seam gas explorers.

The Surat Basin’s Middle Jurassic Walloon Subgroup is a productive coal seam gas source in Queensland, Australia. The Walloon Subgroup can be subdivided into the Upper and Lower Juandah coal measures, the Tangalooma Sandstone, the Taroom Coal Measures, and the Eurombah/Durabilla Formation, from top to bottom. Correlation across the basin is challenging due to high lateral variability and lack of extensive stratigraphic markers. The Walloon Subgroup is also, in places, incised by the overlying Springbok Sandstone, sometimes interpreted as far down as the Tangalooma Sandstone. New age dates suggest that the Walloon Coal Measures are Oxfordian in age and mark a period of high rates of Corg production and burial, and an intermittent decrease of atmospheric pCO2. The un- or dis-conformable base of the Springbok Sandstone coincides with a turning point of this supposedly global phenomenon. This study uses organic stable carbon isotope trends as a correlation tool within the Surat Basin’s Walloon Subgroup and its overlying Springbok Sandstone. Analysis of a stratigraphic suite of coal samples from several wells across the Surat Basin shows a gradual enrichment in 13C up section from the Taroom to the Lower Juandah Coal Measures, with the most positive δ13C values within the Upper Juandah Coal Measures. Thereafter there is a rapid reversal to more negative δ13C values for coal samples of the Springbok Sandstone. The upward enrichment occurs well before the shift in maceral composition to increased inertinite content in the coals, suggesting more global allogenic processes are controlling the carbon isotopic trend. The consistency of these trends lends a more confident correlation for sub-units within the Walloon Subgroup, and assists in determining the level of incision disconformity of the Springbok Sandstone.

Queensland’s coal seam gas production industry began in 1996 with production from the Permian Baralaba Coal Measures and Bandanna Formation located in the eastern and western Bowen Basin, respectively. It went to another level when production commenced from the Jurassic Walloon Coal Measures in 2005. Production in 2018/2019 amounted to nearly 1500 PJ with nearly 80% coming from the Walloon Coal Measures. The remaining 20% is sourced from the Late Permian Bandanna Formation, Baralaba Coal Measures and Moranbah Coal Measures. A minor volume comes from the Early Permian Cattle Creek Formation. The Early Permian Reids Dome beds are located in the Denison Trough, a graben complex located in the southwest Bowen Basin. The Reids Dome beds were deposited as the basal unit of variably sized grabens and half-grabens. The unit varies in thickness from 9 to >2770 m but the unit hasn’t been fully intersected where it is thickest. Net coal within the formation is also highly variable (<1 to >65 m). At present there has been no commercial production from the coals of the Reids Dome beds, but a number of small fields have reported commercial production from coals of the Early Permian Cattle Creek Formation. By definition, the Cattle Creek Formation was deposited in a marine environment and is contemporaneous with the upper Reids Dome beds. It is here suggested that coals intersected at these producing locations are located in the Reids Dome beds. The interpreted depositional centres for the Reids Dome beds underlie or are immediately adjacent to major Late Permian field developments with access to infrastructure and transmission. Ongoing exploration and appraisal work is continuing across the Denison Trough to fully understand the potential of these coals. Coals from the Reids Dome beds average >10 m3/tonne, >90% saturation >70% methane and up to 20% ethane.

Growth in the coal seam gas industry in Queensland, Australia, has been rapid over the past 15 years, with greater than USD 70 billion invested in three liquified natural gas export projects supplied by produced coal seam gas. Annual production is of the order of 40 Bscm or 1,500 PJ, with approximately 80% of this coming from the Jurassic Walloon Coal Measures of the Surat Basin and 20% from the Permian Coal Measures of the Bowen Basin. The Walloon Coal Measures are characterized by multiple thin coal seams making up approximately 10% of the total thickness of the unit. A typical well intersects 10 to 20 m of net coal over a 200- to 300-m interval, interbedded with lithic-rich sandstones, siltstones, and carbonaceous mudstones. The presence of such a significant section of lithic interburden within the primary production section has led to a somewhat unusual completion strategy. To maximize connection to the gas-bearing coals, uncemented slotted liners are used; however, this leaves fluid-sensitive interburden exposed to drilling, completion, and produced formation fluids over the life of a well. External swellable packers and blank joints are therefore used to isolate larger intervals of interburden and hence minimize fines production. Despite these efforts, significant fines production still occurs, which leads to the failure of artificial lift systems and the need for expensive workovers or lost wells. Fines production has major economic implications, with anecdotal reports suggesting up to 40% of progressive cavity pump artificial lift systems in Walloon Coal Measures producers may be down at any one time. The first step in solving this problem is to identify the extent and distribution of fines production. The wellbore completion strategy above, however, precludes the use of mechanical calipers to identify fines-production-related wellbore enlargement. A new caliper-behind-liner technique has therefore been developed using a multiple-detector density tool. Data from the shorter-spacing detectors are used to characterize the properties of the liner as well as the density of the annular material. This is particularly important to evaluate as the annulus fill varies between gas, formation water, drilling and completion fluids, and accumulated fines. The longer-spacing detector measurements are then used in conjunction with pre-existing openhole formation density measurements to determine the thickness of the annulus, and hence hole size, compensating for liner and annulus properties.

The Upper Jurassic Walloon Coal Measures of the Surat Basin (Queensland) host some of the most prominent coal seam gas (CSG) resources in Australia. The Walloon Coal Measures are directly overlain by the Springbok Sandstone formation, historically referred to as a regional aquifer. An increasing number of studies and industry models suggest relatively limited hydraulic connectivity within the formation and between it and the underlying coal measures, due to extreme lithological heterogeneity. Accurate evaluation of the permeability, as well as lateral and vertical continuity of the lithological units within the Springbok Sandstone, is critical in reservoir models that form the basis of reasonable aquifer protection practices and impact prediction. This study presents a wireline log-based workflow applied to identify permeable zones within the Springbok Sandstone in 31 CSG wells across the Surat Basin that allows robust estimations of porosities and Klinkenberg permeabilities. The workflow primarily utilises spontaneous potential, density, neutron and resistivity logs, and was developed by integrating current industry practices implemented by operators on a local scale to identify risk (permeable) zones in the vicinity of targeted coal seams. The results of this case study indicate that permeable zones within the interval are volumetrically minor (on average 25% N/G) and likely isolated, with Klinkenberg permeabilities rarely exceeding 10–20mD. This evidence for low hydraulic connectivity, as well as significant local variations in the character of the Springbok Sandstone, suggests that the definition of the formation as a regional, continuous aquifer and the way it is modelled needs to be revised.

The Surat Basin in Queensland is one of the world’s premier producers of natural gas from coal seams. We investigate the potential for clay-rich Walloon Coal interburden and the overlying Springbok Sandstone to hold or produce gas. Seventeen core samples were analysed from two wells from intervals within the Walloon Upper Juandah Coal Measures interburden and the Springbok Sandstone. Samples were characterised using high-pressure methane adsorption isotherms, canister gas desorption tests, moisture contents, ash contents, carbon contents, scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry, X-ray quantitative clay analysis, permeability, helium pycnometry and mercury intrusion porosimetry. Methane adsorption was conducted at 30°C with up to 8 MPa pressure on dried crushed samples. The adsorption capacity of methane at 8 MPa varied from 3 cc/g (calcite-cemented) up to 25 cc/g (standard temperature and pressure equivalent) (coal). Clay-rich interburden samples adsorbed ~5–14 cc/g (dry). The measured isotherms and methane content from canister desorption tests show that appreciable volumes of gas are contained within some portions of interburden and in the overlying Springbok Sandstone. Gas within the interburden likely represents a large volumetric resource, albeit in low permeability rock that restricts direct productivity. The gas adsorption and gas content results for the Springbok Sandstone help to explain field observations of high gas content in some landholder water wells.

Laterally discontinuous coal measures are common in alluvial settings due to interaction with fluvial systems. Under these conditions it is difficult to accurately represent coalbeds and interburden sandstone bodies in static and dynamic models at a regional scale. These challenges are compounded in the Walloon Coal Measures by non-uniform drill spacing, which varies from clustered to sparse and insufficient outcrop exposures available to constrain the correlations. To address these issues, this study investigates a nested approach to facies modelling of the Upper Juandah Member of the Jurassic Walloon Coal Measures in the Surat Basin, Queensland, which contains some 3,600 wells, of which half were analysed for lithofacies distributions. This approach contrasts the application of truncated Gaussian simulation, object modelling and multiple-point geostatistical simulation. First, a regional scale structural model was developed based on the correlation of sub units within the basin and the lithofacies were then interpreted from normalised wireline logs. Then geometries of individual facies were defined from two local scale models (~6 × 6 km2) where dense drilling, 3D seismic and paleocurrent analysis data were available to constrain the models. Three training images, generated by object modelling, an analogue of one part of the Ob River, and an interactive method were subsequently used to model primary channels, channels and crevasse splays, respectively. Truncated Gaussian simulation was used in modelling the distribution of marginal and coal swamp. The final model is a combination of the model with primary channels and channels, and the model with marginal and coal swamp. This approach is the first trial in modelling swamp and channel distributions at a regional scale by integrating data from local models, depositional analogues and paleo-flow interpretation in the Surat Basin.

The Surat Basin hosts various industries that extract groundwater including coal seam gas (CSG), feedlots, and agriculture. With water drawdown, gas has been observed in some bores drawing groundwater from different aquifers across the Basin. While methane can occur naturally in aquifers, biogenic CSG has been extracted from the Walloon Coal Measures raising questions on the sources of gas in overlying aquifers. Current standard monitoring uses a direct fill approach to measure dissolved methane concentrations in vials; however, this approach may lose gas present above solubility levels. Water and gas sampling was performed on bores in the Springbok, Gubberamunda, Mooga, Hutton, and Precipice Sandstones, the Orallo Formation, and the Condamine Alluvium. Water bores and CSG production wells from the Walloon Coal Measures were also sampled. We compared direct fill with a closed sampling method for dissolved gas, plus a method for sampling the total free and dissolved gas in the field. Higher dissolved and total methane concentrations were measured using closed sampling methods, especially in gassy bores. The majority of our sampled aquifer gases and waters have stable isotopic signatures distinct from CSG, where methane had likely been formed insitu in shallow aquifers by primary microbial CO2 reduction or fermentation processes. In several gassy bores, the source of the methane could not be clearly identified. This study indicates that (1) current monitoring methods may be underestimating methane concentrations above identified thresholds especially in gassy bores and (2) a combination of isotopic techniques may distinguish methane sources and interaquifer disconnectivity in the majority of cases.

The Upper Jurassic Walloon Coal Measures (WCM) in the Surat Basin host the largest coal seam gas (CSG) resource in Australia. Despite this, a poorly defined lithostratigraphic framework hinders the development of reservoir models and groundwater flow simulations. Correlations in the WCM are challenging, owing to the complex arrangement of facies over short distances and the absence of a reliable regional stratigraphic datum. To better correlate the strata, 26 tuff beds were dated using the U–Pb chemical abrasion thermal ionisation mass spectrometry methodology across the Surat Basin CSG fairway. This initially suggested that coal-bearing strata in the basin were diachronous. However, the acquisition of a new date from the Surat Basin has identified a five million year time gap between dated tuffs ~20 m apart. This suggests the presence of an unconformity and that there were two independent episodes of coal accumulation in the basin. Above the unconformity, there are incised valleys with a sedimentary infill that transitions from fluvial- to tidal-influenced facies, as indicated by dinoflagellate cysts and tidal sedimentary structures, including double mud drapes. The cause of the unconformity is likely to be tectonic, as eustatic sea-level was rising during the Kimmeridigian. The marine incursion into the basin is the consequence of a highstand of sea-level during the early Tithonian. The application of the new chronostratigraphic framework should elucidate the evolution of fluviolacustrine systems in the basin and aid in resource prediction. Further dating of tuffs in the basin could refine the stratigraphic framework.

The potential for connectivity between water supply aquifers and gas reservoirs raises community, government, and scientific concerns. Methane can occur naturally, making it difficult to determine whether water bore methane levels are being influenced by nearby gas operations. This poses a challenge in the Surat Basin, where coal seam gas production operates alongside groundwater using industries (including feedlots, agriculture, mines). Water and gas samples were taken from water bores and coal seam gas (CSG) wells in the Walloon Coal Measures and from overlying aquifers (nominally, the Springbok, Gubberamunda, Orallo, and Mooga sandstones) and the Condamine Alluvium, for stable isotopes of gases, groundwater and dissolved inorganic carbon, as well as strontium isotopes. Most of the sampled water bores had isotopic signatures distinct from CSG wells, though a minority from gassy Springbok Sandstone and Walloon Coal Measure water bores could not be distinguished from CSG wells. In those few cases, neither connectivity or dis-connectivity could be confirmed. Alluvium and shallow aquifer samples have higher R36Cl values distinct from the older CSG production waters, as is the case with most 14C measurements. Waters from the Condamine River indicate potential surface water connectivity with the alluvium. The use of multiple tracers has shown that groundwater in some aquifers can be differentiated from groundwater in the coal seam gas reservoir and hence are useful tools in identifying where groundwater connectivity occurs. Understanding this connectivity forms another line of evidence to improve impact prediction models on a regional scale as well as providing information on connectivity in local groundwater investigations.

Analytical pyrolysis and sealed tube pyrolysis at low temperatures have been used to study the timing and petroleum generating capacity of selected Permian through Tertiary coals and carbonaceous shales in relation to their petrographic and elemental composition. The results show that judicious application of flash pyrolysis techniques in conjunction with more conventional procedures are essential for effective source rock assessment in terrigenous source rocks, particularly in those of lower quality.Although the petroleum potential of the samples follows the broad trends in petrographic composition established for Australian coals, that is, relative proportions of vitrinite, inertinite and liptinite, there is much variation which cannot be explained petrographically at the maceral group level. Furthermore, there is no simple relationship between pyrolytic hydrocarbon yield from terrigenous kerogens and overall elemental composition. The yield and composition of pyrolysable normal hydrocarbons varies widely depending on the nature and amount of liptinite macerals, particularly for samples with Hydrogen Indices below 300. Liptinite-poor (Mass balance calculations based on Rock-Eval analyses of samples from the Jurassic Walloon Coal Measures show that the maximum oil formation occurs over a very narrow maturation window from 0.8 to 1.0 per cent Ro, although small amounts of oil may be generated at lower maturation levels. The gas to oil ratio of the generated hydrocarbons is constant up to a reflectance level of 1.0 per cent Ro, where upon the proportion of gas increases rapidly. The low quality Permian source rocks from the Cooper Basin have a lower ratio of labile to refractory kerogen than the Jurassic and Tertiary examples. As a result, the gas to oil ratio of hydrocarbons formed in the oil window is higher and the oil potential appears to be exhausted at an earlier stage of maturation. Efficient migration of hydrocarbons from Permian sediments in the Cooper Basin also appears to occur at a relatively early stage of maturation compared with the Jurassic Walloon Coal Measures.

The cycles and related changes in exploration targets identified in this study show the evolution of the Queensland petroleum industry from conventional petroleum to coal seam gas dominance. Delineation of these cycles was undertaken using petroleum exploration well data, and production and reserves statistics. Although the cycles are defined on the basis of exploration activity, there is a very different history in the types of targets and commodities explored for in the Bowen-Surat and Cooper-Eromanga basins. Trends in exploration success have been influenced by technology improvements, better understanding of target reservoirs, proximity to infrastructure, government policy and world oil prices. Four distinct exploration cycles have been identified from the data. During the first cycle (1959–74) exploration focused predominantly on the shallower Jurassic-aged reservoirs in the Bowen-Surat basins resulting in the discovery of most of the major conventional oil and gas fields. The second cycle (1979–89) saw exploration begin in earnest in the Cooper-Eromanga basins and a switch to predominantly Triassic-aged reservoirs in the Bowen-Surat basins. The first coal seam gas exploration wells were drilled during this cycle. The third cycle (1990–99) shows a decrease in the number of conventional petroleum wells across both regions and the beginning of the switch to the present dominance of coal seam gas. The fourth cycle (2000–present) shows a significant decrease in the number of conventional exploration wells drilled across both regions, but an increase in the success rates. All conventional discoveries in the Bowen-Surat basins during cycle four have been in Permian-aged reservoirs, reflecting a change in the exploration focus to deeper parts of the Bowen Basin. Coal seam gas exploration has expanded significantly, with the Walloon Coal Measures being targeted, resulting in nearly four coal seam gas wells drilled for each conventional petroleum exploration well state-wide since 2000. Examination of coal seam gas exploration highlights the many false starts since the first well was drilled in 1980. Exploration has shifted from area to area as companies tested different exploration concepts and completion techniques. The most obvious shift has been from Permian-aged targets of the Bowen Basin into the Jurassic-aged Walloon Coal Measures in the Surat and Clarence-Moreton basins, as its prospectivity was realised.

The Upper Jurassic Walloon Coal Measures of the Surat Basin is one of Australia’s largest and most productive gas provinces. Despite the drilling of over 8500 wells and numerous publications, the stratigraphic framework is poorly defined. The laterally discontinuous nature of the sedimentary facies, including coals and fluvial channel sandstones, makes correlation difficult. The abundance of volcanic air-fall tuff beds within strata across the basin provides a unique opportunity to independently verify existing stratigraphic frameworks. Using the high-precision chemical abrasion thermal ionisation mass spectrometry technique, zircon grains from 28 tuff beds have been successfully dated within an error margin of less than 100 kyr. These dates substantially revise biostratigraphic and lithostratigraphic frameworks. Lithostratigraphic units are diachronous across the basin. In addition, the sparsity of key spore–pollen taxa limits the application of biostratigraphy. The complex interplay of climate and subsidence on facies distributions can now be documented over a time frame of ~4 Ma. Syntectonism played an important role in variable palaeodrainage patterns across the basin, the frequency of fluvial avulsions and preferential sites of peat accumulation through time. The new stratigraphic framework should aid in future exploration for coal seam gas in the area. Dating tuff beds using high-precision dating techniques should also assist in correlation of non-marine strata elsewhere in the world.

The groundwater resources of the Condamine River Alluvial Aquifer (Condamine Alluvium) in Queensland have been developed in the past 60 years for irrigation, stock, domestic and other uses. Extraction of more than 55,000 mL/yr from this aquifer is critical to supporting the local irrigation industry. Existing and proposed coal seam gas development in the Surat Basin extends to underneath the western edge of the CA footprint and involves depressurisation of coals that form up to 10% of the Walloon Coal Measures (WCM) at some depth below the alluvium. Reduced groundwater availability from the already-stressed Condamine Alluvium is thus an oft-quoted concern of landholders when further development of the CSG industry is considered. An extensive study, led by the Queensland Office of Groundwater Impact Assessment (OGIA) and supported by Arrow Energy, was carried out to provide quantitative assessments of vertical hydraulic conductivity between the alluvium, coal measures and intervening formations. This extended abstract focuses on one element of the aforementioned study led by Arrow Energy, specifically, aquifer testing undertaken at two representative sites overlying the Condamine Alluvium. This included drilling and collection of core; geophysical, geomechanical and geochemical testing; test pumping and monitoring; and, modelling. An important element of this project, aside from sharing of data and results—was the involvement of local landholders in development of the investigations, and attendance at field days during drilling and presentation of results. Key findings included estimated ranges of vertical hydraulic conductivity derived from parameter estimation modelling that were lower than previously suggested.

The Clarence-Moreton Basin covers an area of some 28 000 km2 in north-eastern New South Wales and south-eastern Queensland. The basin is relatively unexplored, with a well density in New South Wales of one per 1600 km2. Since 1980, Endeavour Resources and its co-venturers have pursued an active exploration programme which has resulted in the recognition of significant petroleum potential in the New South Wales portion of the basin.Previous studies indicated that the Upper Triassic to Lower Cretaceous Clarence-Moreton Basin sequence in general, lacked suitable reservoirs and had poor source- rock potential. While exinite rich, oil-prone source rocks were recognised in the Middle Jurassic Walloon Coal Measures, they were considered immature for oil generation. Moreover, during the 1960's the basin acquired a reputation as an area where seismic records were of poor quality.These ideas are now challenged following the results of a new round of exploration which commenced in the New South Wales portion of the basin in 1980. This exploration has involved the acquisition of over 1000 km of multifold seismic data, the reprocessing of some 200 km of existing single fold data, and the drilling of one wildcat well. Over twenty large structural leads have been identified, involving trapping mechanisms ranging from simple drape to antithetic and synthetic fault blocks associated with normal and reverse fault dependent and independent closures.The primary exploration targets in the Clarence- Moreton Basin sequence are Lower Jurassic sediments comprising a thick, porous and permeable sandstone unit in the Bundamba Group, and channel and point-bar sands in the Marburg Formation. Source rocks in these and the underlying Triassic coal measures are gas-prone and lie at maturity levels compatible with gas generation. In contrast, it was established from the results of Shannon 1 that the Walloon Coal Measures are mature for oil generation and this maturity regime is now considered to be applicable to most of the basin in New South Wales.A consideration of reservoir and source rock distribution, together with structural trends across the basin in Petroleum Exploration Licences 258 and 259, has led to the identification of three prospective fairways, two of which involve shallow oil plays. Exploration of these fairways is currently the focus of an ongoing programme of further seismic data acquisition and drilling.

Environmental context Water associated with coal seam gas is generally of poor quality and thus its management and potential further usage is a subject of concern. In a comprehensive study involving chemical and bioanalytical assessments of coal seam gas associated water, we found that less than 5% of the biological effects could be explained by chemical analysis. The use of bioanalytical tools to complement chemical analysis is recommended for monitoring the quality of water associated with coal seam gas. Abstract A comprehensive study was undertaken involving chemical (inorganic and organic) and bioanalytical assessments of coal seam gas associated water (CSGW) in Queensland, Australia. CSGW is a by-product of the gas extraction process and is generally considered as water of poor quality. CSGW is disposed of by release to surface water, reinjected to groundwater or beneficially reused. In this study, groundwater samples were collected from private wells tapping into the Walloon Coal Measures, the same coal aquifer exploited for coal seam gas production in the Surat Basin. The inorganic characteristics of these water samples were almost identical to the CSGW from the nearby gas field, with high sodium, bicarbonate and chloride concentrations but low calcium, magnesium and negligible sulfate concentrations. As for organic compounds, low levels of polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were detected in the water samples, and neither phenols nor volatile organic compounds were found. Five of the fourteen bioassays tested gave positive responses (arylhydrocarbon-receptor gene activation, estrogenic endocrine activity, oxidative stress response, interference with cytokine production and non-specific toxicity), whereas the other nine assays showed no genotoxicity, protein damage or activation of hormone receptors other than the estrogen receptor. The observed effects were benchmarked against known water sources and were similar to secondary treated wastewater effluent, stormwater and surface water. As mixture toxicity modelling demonstrated, the detected PAHs explained less than 5% of the observed biological effects. These results showed that bioanalytical assessment can open new avenues for research into the potential environmental and health risk from CSGW.

The petroleum industry uses high level dynamic simulations applied to geocellular models to guide forecasts of oil, gas and water production. Uncertainty in model choice and input variable selection is often addressed through large numbers of computationally slow Monte Carlo simulations designed around physics based models. Here, an alternate approach is proposed, which uses a relatively small amount of data and a reduced number of simulations of the high level physics model to train a fast (to evaluate) proxy or surrogate model based on a Polynomial Chaos Expansion. We give details of the theory and incorporated techniques, which significantly increase flexibility. Input variables (e.g. cell-by-cell variations in porosity and permeability) are sampled from unknown probability distributions and sensitivity analysis is based on low level proxy models. The theory is tested by developing proxy models to predict total gas production from a five-spot well configuration in the Hermitage area that taps into the Walloon Coal Measures of the Surat Basin in Queensland. Synthetic training data is simulated using commercial dynamic simulation software based on a high level physics model.

In 2001, Arrow Energy NL, a fledgling coal seam gas (CSG) explorer, drilled the first wells of a multi-well exploration program in two Authorities To Prospect (ATP) permits—ATPs 683P and 676P—that covered an area totalling 13,817 km2 of the Jurassic Walloon Coal Measures in the eastern Surat Basin. The objective was to discover significant CSG resources and, if successful, to commercialise to reserve status. Early exploration success in 2002 saw the discovery of the Kogan North and Tipton West CSG fields. This paper reviews the discovery and subsequent appraisal and development work that Arrow Energy has completed to establish production from these fields.By 2004, Arrow Energy had independently certified Probablereserves in the Kogan North field of 85 PJ, and Possible reserves of 157 PJ. Results from a five-well CSG pilot operation demonstrated the feasibility of commercial gas flow rates sufficiently to justify commercialising CSG from the Walloon Coal Measures in the Kogan North field. Under the terms of a staged development agreement, CS Energy Ltd—Queensland’s largest electricity generator—farmed into the Kogan North Project to earn a 50% interest in PL194 and an adjoining portion of ATP 676P by funding A$13.1 million of the project’s development and appraisalcosts. The funds provided by CS Energy covered the majority of the development costs required for Arrow’s Kogan North development project. The initial gas sales contract from Kogan North will supply sales gas of 4 PJ/a for 15 years to CS Energy from March 2006. Arrow Energy retains the remaining 50% interest and operates the project.With 25 PJ Probable, 90 PJ Probable and 1,980 PJ Possiblegas reserves certified independently, the Tipton West field could potentially be one of the largest onshore gas fields in eastern Australia. Final appraisal of the Tipton West field is currently underway with financial close on the development expected in late 2005. Beach Petroleum Ltd has entered into an agreement to fund the A$35 million required for upstream developmentto supply the initial 10 PJ/a sales gas from the field in 2007, in exchange for 40% interest in th Dalby block of ATP683P. Arrow Energy retains the remaining 60% interest and operates the project.Diligent environmental and land management systems are required with the development of any CSG field. For example, formation water produced from CSG activities needs to be managed effectively. To deal with this water Arrow Energy is developing and implementing several innovative strategies, including forced evaporation dams, water supply to local coal-washing plants and trialling desalination plants to provide drinking water for nearby towns, aquaculture and stock watering.Arrow Energy has also implemented a Cultural Heritage Management Plan within the development areas in cooperation with the local indigenous claimant groups, the Western Wakka Wakka and the Barunggam peoples. The plan was designed to minimise risk of any disturbance to indigenous artefacts and areas of significance during the exploration, construction and ongoing operations associated with the development of both gas fields.The discovery and future development of the Kogan North and Tipton West fields has been achieved by using an appropriate mix of geological evaluation, efficient drilling techniques, innovative well completion methods and successful marketing strategies, integrated with cooperative environmental and cultural heritage management systems.

One of the key challenges to assist in the understanding of the potential impacts of coal seam gas (CSG) extraction is the development of robust geological and numerical models. In the Clarence-Moreton Basin, this task is complicated by the need to integrate shallow alluvial aquifers (typically less than 30 m thick) and deep bedrock aquifers, which can have a combined thickness of up to approximately 3,500–4,000 m in some parts of the basin. While shallow aquifers are not typically considered in petroleum reservoir studies, they are of great significance in the Australian government’s Bioregional Assessment Program as they host a range of valuable water-dependent assets. To address this challenge, the authors have developed a series of 3D geological models and flow simulation grids of different scales and resolutions, that will form the assessment’s basis. An accurate understanding of the potential connectivity pathways between the five major alluvial aquifer systems and the underlying Triassic to Cretaceous age units will underpin the prediction of potential impacts of depressurisation associated with CSG extraction from the Walloon Coal Measures, which is the major target of CSG exploration in the Clarence-Moreton Basin. The authors have used SKUA/GoCAD (Paradigm®) 3D geological modelling software to develop 3D geological models from elevation (DEM), and stratigraphic, seismic and lithological data to facilitate the development of reliable conceptual and numerical models that describe these connectivity pathways and constitute a road-map to a risk assessment of the potential impacts on water-related assets from CSG production in the basin.

In coal seam gas exploration and appraisal, stress and permeability are often inter-related and play a large role in deliverability, particularly affecting hydraulic fracturing effectiveness. Generally, the structural setting for a coal seam gas (CSG) play can be defined by indirect data such as petroleum wells, core wells, or seismic data; however, the viability of a structure to be highly conducive to CSG development also requires direct measurements to fully define the effects associated with this interdependency of stress and permeability. Unfortunately, this interdependency may not be as apparent during the exploration phase as within the planning, execution and evaluation of a hydraulic fracturing program. We will present data from a limited area of the Surat Basin, in the Walloon coal measures, where initial regional and well data were available to allow drilling to evaluate a small, localised, structural setting for CSG development. While some permeability data were encouraging in the initial program, subsequent drilling indicated that permeability might become variable across this structure. Thus, further investigations were made and included novel, cross-dipole sonic logging in combination with acoustic and more advanced resistivity imaging logs. These data indicated that the stress and permeability azimuths may be aligned to take advantage of hydraulic fracturing. Thus, a hydraulic fracturing program was initiated in this area incorporating diagnostics to understand the potential benefit of this technology. The results of this program, while localised, do indicate that a potential pitfall can exist in some environments where the stress magnitudes along with stress and dominant permeability axes are not ideally positioned to take advantage of hydraulic fracturing. We will show how the data in this case were acquired, evaluated and integrated to support the overall understanding and interpretation of the results. Due to space constraints, this paper focusses primarily on the overall data process and is unable to elaborate fully on all diagnostics used and the fullness of their determinations; however, adequate supporting evidence is supplied in order to illustrate the problems in executing and achieving effective stimulation in similar structural settings.

This issue marks the debut of the Hydraulic Fracturing Operations feature in JPT. While hydraulic fracturing has long been a feature topic, this year, we are branching this major area of interest into both this feature and a Hydraulic Fracturing Modeling feature, which will appear in the November issue of the magazine. For this issue, reviewer Nabila Lazreq of ADNOC has selected three papers that reflect industry efforts to achieve new goals in production and sustainability. Paper 201450 investigates the potential of natural gas (NG) foam fracturing fluid to reduce the major water requirements seen in stimulation. The authors write that such requirements can be reduced up to 80% in some cases by the use of NG foams. Although modeling is used to reach their conclusions, the authors point out that NG foam fracturing fluids have great promise in operational scenarios in areas such as the Duvernay Shale. Paper 203226 reviews the challenges and conclusions reached by an operator implementing multistage fracturing for the first time in a horizontal well in a UAE tight carbonate reservoir. A cross-disciplinary approach proved effective when conventional stimulation methods were not successful in this challenging formation. Finally, paper 201611 returns to the topic of NG foams, investigating their utility as an alternative to fracturing fluids composed of nitrogen and carbon-dioxide foams. The pilot-scale study leads the authors to conclude that NG foams are effective fracturing fluids that exhibit stable viscosity at elevated pressure and temperature conditions. We hope that you enjoy the inaugural Hydraulic Fracturing Operations feature. Feel free to access the complete papers, and others that reflect recent achievements of SPE conference authors, in the OnePetro online library. Recommended additional reading at OnePetro: www.onepetro.org. SPE 204190 Optimization of Coal-Seam Connectivity by Multiseam Pinpoint Fracturing Operations in the Walloons Coal Measures, Surat Basin by Vibhas J. Pandey, ConocoPhillips, et al. SPE 204140 An Eagle Ford Case Study: Monitoring Fracturing Propagation Through Sealed Wellbore Pressure Monitoring by Kourtney Brinkley, Devon Energy, et al. SPE 202760 Tight Oil From Shale Rock in UAE: A Success Story of Unconventional Fracturing by Nabila Lazreq, ADNOC, et al.

Poster G2 Queensland’s coal seam gas production industry began in 1996 with production from the Permian Baralaba Coal Measures and Bandanna Formation located in the eastern and western Bowen Basin, respectively. It went to another level when production commenced from the Jurassic Walloon Coal Measures in 2005. Production in 2018/2019 amounted to nearly 1500 PJ with nearly 80% coming from the Walloon Coal Measures. The remaining 20% is sourced from the Late Permian Bandanna Formation, Baralaba Coal Measures and Moranbah Coal Measures. A minor volume comes from the Early Permian Cattle Creek Formation. The Early Permian Reids Dome beds are located in the Denison Trough, a graben complex located in the southwest Bowen Basin. The Reids Dome beds were deposited as the basal unit of variably sized grabens and half-grabens. The unit varies in thickness from 9 to >2770 m but the unit hasn’t been fully intersected where it is thickest. Net coal within the formation is also highly variable (<1 to >65 m). At present there has been no commercial production from the coals of the Reids Dome beds, but a number of small fields have reported commercial production from coals of the Early Permian Cattle Creek Formation. By definition, the Cattle Creek Formation was deposited in a marine environment and is contemporaneous with the upper Reids Dome beds. It is here suggested that coals intersected at these producing locations are located in the Reids Dome beds. The interpreted depositional centres for the Reids Dome beds underlie or are immediately adjacent to major Late Permian field developments with access to infrastructure and transmission. Ongoing exploration and appraisal work is continuing across the Denison Trough to fully understand the potential of these coals. Coals from the Reids Dome beds average >10 m3/tonne, >90% saturation >70% methane and up to 20% ethane. To access the poster click the link on the right. To read the full paper click here

Presented on Tuesday 17 May: Session 5 The potential for connectivity between water supply aquifers and gas reservoirs raises community, government, and scientific concerns. Methane can occur naturally, making it difficult to determine whether water bore methane levels are being influenced by nearby gas operations. This poses a challenge in the Surat Basin, where coal seam gas production operates alongside groundwater using industries (including feedlots, agriculture, mines). Water and gas samples were taken from water bores and coal seam gas (CSG) wells in the Walloon Coal Measures and from overlying aquifers (nominally, the Springbok, Gubberamunda, Orallo, and Mooga sandstones) and the Condamine Alluvium, for stable isotopes of gases, groundwater and dissolved inorganic carbon, as well as strontium isotopes. Most of the sampled water bores had isotopic signatures distinct from CSG wells, though a minority from gassy Springbok Sandstone and Walloon Coal Measure water bores could not be distinguished from CSG wells. In those few cases, neither connectivity or dis-connectivity could be confirmed. Alluvium and shallow aquifer samples have higher R36Cl values distinct from the older CSG production waters, as is the case with most 14C measurements. Waters from the Condamine River indicate potential surface water connectivity with the alluvium. The use of multiple tracers has shown that groundwater in some aquifers can be differentiated from groundwater in the coal seam gas reservoir and hence are useful tools in identifying where groundwater connectivity occurs. Understanding this connectivity forms another line of evidence to improve impact prediction models on a regional scale as well as providing information on connectivity in local groundwater investigations. To access the presentation click the link on the right. To read the full paper click here

Our culture abhors the world.Yet Quicksand is swallowing the duellists; the river is threatening the fighter: earth, waters and climate, the mute world, the voiceless things once placed as a decor surrounding the usual spectacles, all those things that never interested anyone, from now on thrust themselves brutally and without warning into our schemes and manoeuvres (Michel Serres, The Natural Contract, p 3). When Michel Serres describes culture's abhorrence of the world in the opening pages of The Natural Contract he draws our attention to the sidelining of nature in histories and theories that have sought to describe Western culture. As Serres argues, cultural histories are quite often built on the debates and struggles of humanity, which are largely held apart from their natural surroundings, as if on a stage, "purified of things" (3). But, as he is at pains to point out, human activity and conflict always take place within a natural milieu, a space of quicksand, swelling rivers, shifting earth, and atmospheric turbulence. Recently, via the potential for vast environmental change, what was once thought of as a staid “nature” has reasserted itself within culture. In this paper I explore how Serres’s positioning of nature can be understood amid new communication systems, which, via the apparent dematerialization of messages, seems to have further removed culture from nature. From here, I focus on a set of artworks that work against this division, reformulating the connection between information, a topic usually considered in relation to media and anthropic communication (and something about which Serres too has a great deal to say), and nature, an entity commonly considered beyond human contrivance. In particular, I explore how information visualisation and sonification has been used to give a new sense of materiality to the atmosphere, repotentialising the air as a natural and informational entity. The Natural Contract argues for the legal legitimacy of nature, a natural contract similar in standing to Rousseau’s social contract. Serres’ss book explores the history and notion of a “legal person”, arguing for a linking of the scientific view of the world and the legal visions of social life, where inert objects and living beings are considered within the same legal framework. As such The Natural Contract does not deal with ecology per-se, but instead focuses on an argument for the inclusion of nature within law (Serres, “A Return” 131). In a drastic reconfiguring of the subject/object relationship, Serres explains how the space that once existed as a backdrop for human endeavour now seems to thrust itself directly into history. "They (natural events) burst in on our culture, which had never formed anything but a local, vague, and cosmetic idea of them: nature" (Serres, The Natural Contract 3). In this movement, nature does not simply take on the role of a new object to be included within a world still dominated by human subjects. Instead, human beings are understood as intertwined with a global system of turbulence that is both manipulated by them and manipulates them. Taking my lead from Serres’s book, in this paper I begin to explore the disconnections and reconnections that have been established between information and the natural environment. While I acknowledge that there is nothing natural about the term “nature” (Harman 251), I use the term to designate an environment constituted by the systematic processes of the collection of entities that are neither human beings nor human crafted artefacts. As the formation of cultural systems becomes demarcated from these natural objects, the scene is set for the development of culturally mediated concepts such as “nature” and “wilderness,” as entities untouched and unspoilt by cultural process (Morton). On one side of the divide the complex of communication systems is situated, on the other is situated “nature”. The restructuring of information flows due to developments in electronic communication has ostensibly removed messages from the medium of nature. Media is now considered within its own ecology (see Fuller; Strate) quite separate from nature, except when it is developed as media content (see Cubitt; Murray; Heumann). A separation between the structures of media ecologies and the structures of natural ecologies has emerged over the history of electronic communication. For instance, since the synoptic media theory of McLuhan it has been generally acknowledged that the shift from script to print, from stone to parchment, and from the printing press to more recent developments such as the radio, telephone, television, and Web2.0, have fundamentally altered the structure and effects of human relationships. However, these developments – “the extensions of man” (McLuhan)— also changed the relationship between society and nature. Changes in communications technology have allowed people to remain dispersed, as ideas, in the form of electric currents or pulses of light travel vast distances and in diverse directions, with communication no longer requiring human movement across geographic space. Technologies such as the telegraph and the radio, with their ability to seemingly dematerialize the media of messages, reformulated the concept of communication into a “quasi-physical connection” across the obstacles of time and space (Clarke, “Communication” 132). Prior to this, the natural world itself was the medium through which information was passed. Rather than messages transmitted via wires, communication was associated with the transport of messages through the world via human movement, with the materiality of the medium measured in the time it took to cover geographic space. The flow of messages followed trade flows (Briggs and Burke 20). Messages moved along trails, on rail, over bridges, down canals, and along shipping channels, arriving at their destination as information. More recently however, information, due to its instantaneous distribution and multiplication across space, seems to have no need for nature as a medium. Nature has become merely a topic for information, as media content, rather than as something that takes part within the information system itself. The above example illustrates a separation between information exchange and the natural environment brought about by a set of technological developments. As Serres points out, the word “media” is etymologically related to the word “milieu”. Hence, a theory of media should be always related to an understanding of the environment (Crocker). But humans no longer need to physically move through the natural world to communicate, ideas can move freely from region to region, from air-conditioned room to air-conditioned room, relatively unimpeded by natural forces or geographic distance. For a long time now, information exchange has not necessitated human movement through the natural environment and this has consequences for how the formation of culture and its location in (or dislocation from) the natural world is viewed. A number of artists have begun questioning the separation between media and nature, particularly concerning the materiality of air, and using information to provide new points of contact between media and the atmosphere (for a discussion of the history of ecoart see Wallen). In Eclipse (2009) (fig. 1) for instance, an internet based work undertaken by the collective EcoArtTech, environmental sensing technology and online media is used experimentally to visualize air pollution. EcoArtTech is made up of the artist duo Cary Peppermint and Leila Nadir and since 2005 they have been inquiring into the relationship between digital technology and the natural environment, particularly regarding concepts such as “wilderness”. In Eclipse, EcoArtTech garner photographs of American national parks from social media and photo sharing sites. Air quality data gathered from the nearest capital city is then inputted into an algorithm that visibly distorts the image based on the levels of particle pollution detected in the atmosphere. The photographs that circulate on photo sharing sites such as Flickr—photographs that are usually rather banal in their adherence to a history of wilderness photography—are augmented by the environmental pollution circulating in nearby capital cities. Figure 1: EcoArtTech, Eclipse (detail of screenshot), 2009 (Internet-based work available at:http://turbulence.org/Works/eclipse/) The digital is often associated with the clean transmission of information, as packets of data move from a server, over fibre optic cables, to be unpacked and re-presented on a computer's screen. Likewise, the photographs displayed in Eclipse are quite often of an unspoilt nature, containing no errors in their exposure or focus (most probably because these wilderness photographs were taken with digital cameras). As the photographs are overlaid with information garnered from air quality levels, the “unspoilt” photograph is directly related to pollution in the natural environment. In Eclipse the background noise of “wilderness,” the pollution in the air, is reframed as foreground. “We breathe background noise…Background noise is the ground of our perception, absolutely uninterrupted, it is our perennial sustenance, the element of the software of all our logic” (Serres, Genesis 7). Noise is activated in Eclipse in a similar way to Serres’s description, as an indication of the wider milieu in which communication takes place (Crocker). Noise links the photograph and its transmission not only to the medium of the internet and the glitches that arise as information is circulated, but also to the air in the originally photographed location. In addition to noise, there are parallels between the original photographs of nature gleaned from photo sharing sites and Serres’s concept of a history that somehow stands itself apart from the effects of ongoing environmental processes. By compartmentalising the natural and cultural worlds, both the historiography that Serres argues against and the wilderness photograph produces a concept of nature that is somehow outside, behind, or above human activities and the associated matter of noise. Eclipse, by altering photographs using real-time data, puts the still image into contact with the processes and informational outputs of nature. Air quality sensors detect pollution in the atmosphere and code these atmospheric processes into computer readable information. The photograph is no longer static but is now open to continual recreation and degeneration, dependent on the coded value of the atmosphere in a given location. A similar materiality is given to air in a public work undertaken by Preemptive Media, titled Areas Immediate Reading (AIR) (fig. 2). In this project, Preemptive Media, made up of Beatriz da Costa, Jamie Schulte and Brooke Singer, equip participants with instruments for measuring air quality as they walked around New York City. The devices monitor the carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx) or ground level ozone (O3) levels that are being breathed in by the carrier. As Michael Dieter has pointed out in his reading of the work, the application of sensing technology by Preemptive Media is in distinct contrast to the conventional application of air quality monitoring, which usually takes the form of extremely high resolution located devices spread over great distances. These larger air monitoring networks tend to present the value garnered from a large expanse of the atmosphere that covers individual cities or states. The AIR project, in contrast, by using small mobile sensors, attempts to put people in informational contact with the air that they are breathing in their local and immediate time and place, and allows them to monitor the small parcels of atmosphere that surround other users in other locations (Dieter). It thus presents many small and mobile spheres of atmosphere, inhabited by individuals as they move through the city. In AIR we see the experimental application of an already developed technology in order to put people on the street in contact with the atmospheres that they are moving through. It gives a new informational form to the “vast but invisible ocean of air that surrounds us and permeates us” (Ihde 3), which in this case is given voice by a technological apparatus that converts the air into information. The atmosphere as information becomes less of a vague background and more of a measurable entity that ingresses into the lives and movements of human users. The air is conditioned by information; the turbulent and noisy atmosphere has been converted via technology into readable information (Connor 186-88). Figure 2: Preemptive Media, Areas Immediate Reading (AIR) (close up of device), 2011 Throughout his career Serres has developed a philosophy of information and communication that may help us to reframe the relationship between the natural and cultural worlds (see Brown). Conventionally, the natural world is understood as made up of energy and matter, with exchanges of energy and the flows of biomass through food webs binding ecosystems together (DeLanda 120-1). However, the tendencies and structures of natural systems, like cultural systems, are also dependent on the communication of information. It is here that Serres provides us with a way to view natural and cultural systems as connected by a flow of energy and information. He points out that in the wake of Claude Shannon’s famous Mathematical Theory of Communication it has been possible to consider the relationship between information and thermodynamics, at least in Shannon’s explanation of noise as entropy (Serres, Hermes74). For Serres, an ecosystem can be conceptualised as an informational and energetic system: “it receives, stores, exchanges, and gives off both energy and information in all forms, from the light of the sun to the flow of matter which passes through it (food, oxygen, heat, signals)” (Serres, Hermes 74). Just as we are related to the natural world based on flows of energy— as sunlight is converted into energy by plants, which we in turn convert into food— we are also bound together by flows of information. The task is to find new ways to sense this information, to actualise the information, and imagine nature as more than a welter of data and the air as more than background. If we think of information in broad ranging terms as “coded values of the output of a process” (Losee 254), then we see that information and the environment—as a setting that is produced by continual and energetic processes—are in constant contact. After all, humans sense information from the environment all the time; we constantly decode the coded values of environmental processes transmitted via the atmosphere. I smell a flower, I hear bird songs, and I see the red glow of a sunset. The process of the singing bird is coded as vibrations of air particles that knock against my ear drum. The flower is coded as molecules in the atmosphere enter my nose and bind to cilia. The red glow is coded as wavelengths from the sun are dispersed in the Earth’s atmosphere and arrive at my eye. Information, of course, does not actually exist as information until some observing system constructs it (Clarke, “Information” 157-159). This observing system as we see the sunset, hear the birds, or smell the flower involves the atmosphere as a medium, along with our sense organs and cognitive and non-cognitive processes. The molecules in the atmosphere exist independently of our sense of them, but they do not actualise as information until they are operationalised by the observational system. Prior to this, information can be thought of as noise circulating within the atmosphere. Heinz Von Foester, one of the key figures of cybernetics, states “The environment contains no information. The environment is as it is” (Von Foester in Clarke, “Information” 157). Information, in this model, actualises only when something in the world causes a change to the observational system, as a difference that makes a difference (Bateson 448-466). Air expelled from a bird’s lungs and out its beak causes air molecules to vibrate, introducing difference into the atmosphere, which is then picked up by my ear and registered as sound, informing me that a bird is nearby. One bird song is picked up as information amid the swirling noise of nature and a difference in the air makes a difference to the observational system. It may be useful to think of the purpose of information as to control action and that this is necessary “whenever the people concerned, controllers as well as controlled, belong to an organised social group whose collective purpose is to survive and prosper” (Scarrott 262). Information in this sense operates the organisation of groups. Using this definition rooted in cybernetics, we see that information allows groups, which are dependent on certain control structures based on the sending and receiving of messages through media, to thrive and defines the boundaries of these groups. We see this in a flock of birds, for instance, which forms based on the information that one bird garners from the movements of the other birds in proximity. Extrapolating from this, if we are to live included in an ecological system capable of survival, the transmission of information is vital. But the form of the information is also important. To communicate, for example, one entity first needs to recognise that the other is speaking and differentiate this information from the noise in the air. Following Clarke and Von Foester, an observing system needs to be operational. An art project that gives aesthetic form to environmental processes in this vein—and one that is particularly concerned with the co-agentive relation between humans and nature—is Reiko Goto and Tim Collin’s Plein Air (2010) (fig. 3), an element in their ongoing Eden 3 project. In this work a technological apparatus is wired to a tree. This apparatus, which references the box easels most famously used by the Impressionists to paint ‘en plein air’, uses sensing technology to detect the tree’s responses to the varying CO2 levels in the atmosphere. An algorithm then translates this into real time piano compositions. The tree’s biological processes are coded into the voice of a piano and sensed by listeners as aesthetic information. What is at stake in this work is a new understanding of atmospheres as a site for the exchange of information, and an attempt to resituate the interdependence of human and non-human entities within an experimental aesthetic system. As we breathe out carbon dioxide—both through our physiological process of breathing and our cultural processes of polluting—trees breath it in. By translating these biological processes into a musical form, Collins and Gotto’s work signals a movement from a process of atmospheric exchange to a digital process of sensing and coding, the output of which is then transmitted through the atmosphere as sound. It must be mentioned that within this movement from atmospheric gas to atmospheric music we are not listening to the tree alone. We are listening to a much more complex polyphony involving the components of the digital sensing technology, the tree, the gases in the atmosphere, and the biological (breathing) and cultural processes (cars, factories and coal fired power stations) that produce these gases. Figure 3: Reiko Goto and Tim Collins, Plein Air, 2010 As both Don Ihde and Steven Connor have pointed out, the air that we breathe is not neutral. It is, on the contrary, given its significance in technology, sound, and voice. Taking this further, we might understand sensing technology as conditioning the air with information. This type of air conditioning—as information alters the condition of air—occurs as technology picks up, detects, and makes sensible phenomena in the atmosphere. While communication media such as the telegraph and other electronic information distribution systems may have distanced information from nature, the sensing technology experimentally applied by EcoArtTech, Preeemptive Media, and Goto and Collins, may remind us of the materiality of air. These technologies allow us to connect to the atmosphere; they reformulate it, converting it to information, giving new form to the coded processes in nature.AcknowledgmentAll images reproduced with the kind permission of the artists. References Bateson, Gregory. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972. Briggs, Asa, and Peter Burke. A Social History of the Media: From Gutenberg to the Internet. Maden: Polity Press, 2009. Brown, Steve. “Michel Serres: Science, Translation and the Logic of the Parasite.” Theory, Culture and Society 19.1 (2002): 1-27. Clarke, Bruce. “Communication.” Critical Terms for Media Studies. Eds. Mark B. N. Hansen and W. J. T. Mitchell. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. 131-45 -----. “Information.” Critical Terms for Media Studies. Eds. Mark B. N. Hansen and W. J. T. Mitchell. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010. 157-71 Crocker, Stephen. “Noise and Exceptions: Pure Mediality in Serres and Agamben.” CTheory: 1000 Days of Theory. (2007). 7 June 2012 ‹http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=574› Connor, Stephen. The Matter of Air: Science and the Art of the Etheral. London: Reaktion, 2010. Cubitt, Sean. EcoMedia. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2005 Deiter, Michael. “Processes, Issues, AIR: Toward Reticular Politics.” Australian Humanities Review 46 (2009). 9 June 2012 ‹http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-May-2009/dieter.htm› DeLanda, Manuel. Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy. London and New York: Continuum, 2002. Fuller, Matthew. Media Ecologies: Materialist Energies in Art and Technoculture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005 Harman, Graham. Guerilla Metaphysics. Illinois: Open Court, 2005. Ihde, Don. Listening and Voice: Phenomenologies of Sound. Albany: State University of New York, 2007. Innis, Harold. Empire and Communication. Toronto: Voyageur Classics, 1950/2007. Losee, Robert M. “A Discipline Independent Definition of Information.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science 48.3 (1997): 254–69. McLuhan, Marshall. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. London: Sphere Books, 1964/1967. Morton, Timothy. Ecology Without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007. Murray, Robin, and Heumann, Joseph. Ecology and Popular Film: Cinema on the Edge. Albany: State University of New York, 2009 Scarrott, G.C. “The Nature of Information.” The Computer Journal 32.3 (1989): 261-66 Serres, Michel. Hermes: Literature, Science Philosophy. Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press, 1982. -----. The Natural Contract. Trans. Elizabeth MacArthur and William Paulson. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1992/1995. -----. Genesis. Trans. Genevieve James and James Nielson. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1982/1995. -----. “A Return to the Natural Contract.” Making Peace with the Earth. Ed. Jerome Binde. Oxford: UNESCO and Berghahn Books, 2007. Strate, Lance. Echoes and Reflections: On Media Ecology as a Field of Study. New York: Hampton Press, 2006 Wallen, Ruth. “Ecological Art: A Call for Intervention in a Time of Crisis.” Leonardo 45.3 (2012): 234-42.