With all the environmental battles and controversies raging around the Central West, the Orange region can thank its geological lucky stars for escaping one of the angriest most confrontational issues of all – coal seam gas exploration.
The reason is simple – we’re sitting on older rock which is rich in some areas with minerals, as we know, but doesn’t contain any exploitable coal and gas basins.
So, while farmers and Greens are pitted furiously against the coal seam gas exploration companies over 48 licences ranging from the Sydney Basin to the Queensland border, the Central Tablelands and Orange region south through Canberra – covering some of the best grazing and agricultural land in Australia — should remain free of drilling sites in the future.
According to local mineral geologist Martin Scott, who runs a consultancy called OranGeo, it’s the vast Sydney-Gunnedah Basin, ranging from Lithgow to Sydney, south to Wollongong, and north to the Hunter Valley and up to the Queensland border that’s the prime area for coal and gas.
“From west of Lithgow and into the Central Highlands we have older rocks containing minerals, but no notable deposits of coal and gas,” he says.
Orange News Now
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