Archimedes Consulting Pty Ltd

Archimedes Consulting Pty Ltd specialises in advanced processing and analysis of the Earth's magnetic and gravity fields with a view to aiding petroleum and mineral exploration. The internationally recognised form provides world-class processing and interpretation of high-resolution aeromagnetic field data. Deep crustal studies are undertaken with the specific interest of denining exploration targets for minerals explorers. The approach taken by Archimedes Consulting to interpretation is unique in that the methods provide results that are competitive with deep reflection seismic methods.

'In our processing of high-resolution aeromagnetic data, it is essential to use powerful multiprocessor computers,' says Dr Irena Kivior, Managing Director of Archimedes Consulting. 'Processing very large data sets requires intense computing and without access to eResearch SA machines it would be considerably more difficult to generate an output for petroleum exploration companies which is competitive with seismic data.' The resulting high-value information can save millions of dollars for petroleum exploration companies.

The link between Archimedes Consulting and eResearch SA was forged while Dr Kivior was working at the University of Adelaide and using University supercomputers in her research. When she formed Archimedes Consulting several years ago, the company became a commercial user of the facilities. The firm continues to use the supercomputing facility for research work with the National Centre of Petroleum Geology and Geophysics.

The techniques used by Archimedes Consulting to analyse data after the initial interpretation involved two principle methods: energy spectral analysis (ESA on grid date) and automatic curve matching (ACM on profile data).

Special processing, analysis and interpretation of aeromagnetic data for hydrocarbon exploration has been undertaken over many sedimentary basins including:

• in Australia, the North West shelf basins, Exmouth Sub-basin, the Barrow/Dampier Sub-basin, Amadeus Basin, Perth Basin and Bowen Basin
• in Egypt, the Gulf of Suez and the Red Sea
• in Saudi Arabia, the Eastern Province Basin, and
• petroleum provinces in the United Arab Emirates.