Earth Science and Resource Engineering

Dr Mike McWilliams leads the Division’s staff at the Australian Resources Research Centre in Perth, the Queensland Centre for Advanced Technologies in Brisbane, and at North Ryde in Sydney and Clayton in Victoria.

Dr Michael Glinsky is the Office of the Chief Executive Science Leader for the division of Earth Science and Resource Engineering.

Dr Dave Whitford  manages the development and maintenance of CSIRO’s research and development capabilities in geoscience and geo-engineering.

Dr Edson Nakagawa is a highly skilled engineer with worldwide experience in areas such as drilling and completions performance, production performance and subsea processing.

Ms Peta Ashworth's work coordinates a range of social research projects for a number of CSIRO flagships as she and her team continually trial new and old ways to integrate social sciences into the scientific research programs of CSIRO.

Dr Chris Yeats is the Program Leader for CSIRO Earth Science and Resource Engineering's Mineral System Science Program.

The CSIRO hydraulic fracturing group are pioneering new applications for caving-type mining operations, gas drainage from coal seams, geothermal reservoir development and carbon storage operations.

CSIRO’s Rock Mechanics Laboratory undertakes research and testing for exploration, development and production scenarios in the oil industry as well as for the geological storage of carbon dioxide.

CSIRO's Petrophysics Laboratory offers a range of dielectric measurement options in a broad frequency range for solid and drill cutting samples.

With our detailed knowledge of rock mechanics and our well-equipped facilities, we can provide services for measuring rock properties, and designing and testing new rock-cutting equipment.

Successful exploration relies on knowledge of basin formation and thermal history of sedimentary rock and hydrocarbon migration. CSIRO’s argon dating services can help petroleum companies better determine potential locations for drilling petroleum wells.

CSIRO Petroleum utilizes strontium as a chemical tracer to discriminate between plant and animal products grown in different locations.

CSIRO has developed a team of hydrogeologists that have adapted special techniques for understanding hydrodynamic processes of the deep subsurface where oil and gas is generated and trapped and where CO2 can be safely stored for thousands of years.

Our fluid inclusion and geochemical technologies help industry define subsurface petroleum migration and accumulation processes.

CSIRO’s HyLogging^TM systems provide a means to routinely and objectively capture detailed mineralogical information from drill core, chips and powder using reflectance spectroscopy.

HyChips™ is a robotic spectrometer system designed for the very rapid collection of high quality reflectance spectra from drill chips and blast-hole samples in their original trays. HyChips™ services are available from service providers throughout Australia as part of CSIRO's structured market testing and product development strategy.