Mineralization in eastern Australia coals: a function of oil generation and primary migration

The Permo-Triassic Bowen Basin (Figure 1) is a backarc extentional foreland basin that contains up to 6500 m of mainly terrigenous siliciclastic felsic sediments. The basin is heavily intruded by mafic intrusions and lesser dykes and sills as a result of intense magmatism which accompanied the breakup of the supercontinent of Gondwana in the middle to late Mesozoic (Veevers, 1989). Magmatism continued episodically throughout the Cretaceous and Tertiary (Baker et al., 1995; Raza et al., 1995; Golding et al., 1996).