Abstract
THE Commonwealth of Australia has begun the issue of “The Bulletin of the Territory of Papua,” of which the first number consists of a valuable report by Mr. J. E. Carne, of the Geological Survey of New South Wales, on the coal, petroleum, and copper ores of part of British New Guinea. Mr. Carne visited the district to the north of the Gulf of Papua in 1912 in order to investigate the value of the coal discovered on the Purari River near the northern foot of Mt. Favenc. The coal proved to be only a brown coal of Cainozoic age, and Mr. Carne regards it as of no present economic value. He visited the Vaijala River to inspect a series of gas springs, of which the first was discovered by G. A. Thomas at Opa in 1911. Mr. Carne's samples from these gas springs have been analysed by Mr. Mingaye, who shows that they contain petroleum. The discharge of natural gas is in sufficient quantity to indicate the probable occurrence of considerable supplies of oil in the underlying beds, and Mr. Carne regards the geological conditions as so promising that he recommends the prospecting of the area by adequate boring.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Economic Geology of Papua 1 . Nature 92, 436 (1913). https://doi.org/10.1038/092436b0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/092436b0