Australia does not have a single commercial oil field. Four or five thousand barrels have been produced from shallow wells in the Gippsland basin on the south coast since 1924 and about 30,000 gallons of gasoline were obtained from a gas well at Roma, Queensland, in the late twenties.

The reason why Australia has no commercial oil field and is likely never to be an important oil-producing country may be attributed to the fact that it is a very old continent and most of its surface is occupied by ancient rocks which nowhere yield oil. There are several sedimentary basins but with one or two exceptions they contain only a few thousand feet of strata and in most instances half of these are nonmarine in origin. Marine Tertiary formations which yield the greater percentage of the world's oil are limited to narrow belts on the south and southwest coasts.

The only basin with a fair thickness of marine strata is the Northwest basin north of Perth. It is

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being explored at present by an American-Australian syndicate, which will shortly put down a test well. Shell is starting a deep test north of Roma where some gas and shows of oil have been obtained in Triassic and Permian strata by several companies during the past 30 years.

The writer has spent four years in exploratory work in Australia, during which he investigated seven of the major sedimentary basins. Ground work in the more remote basins was preceded by air reconnaissance to outline basin boundaries, discover geological features requiring detailed investigation on the ground, and to locate water holes and feasible routes of travel. Most ground work was done by small parties traveling with pack horses and at times furnished with supplies dropped by parachute from a plane.

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