JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – The growing debate around shale gas exploration and extraction has sparked a resurgence of academic interest in the Karoo basin’s geological formations, Caracle Creek International Consulting Coal MD Dr John Hancox said on Wednesday.
Speaking at the Fossil Fuel Foundation's Mozambique Coal conference, held in Johannesburg, he pointed out that the interest in shale gas had led to the establishment of a new three-year research programme in the Karoo region.
“We have been lucky that a new programme, through which four or five deep boreholes will be drilled, hopefully through the entire Karoo sequence, in cross-sections from the north and south, and east and west across the basin, has been established,” Hancox told Mining Weekly Online.
He explained that the programme was bringing together about 25 researchers from different fields, such as sedimentology, structural geologists and other academics with research interests in the Karoo, for the first time.
“This research will answer a number of questions on the main Karoo basin’s development, which may or may not have economic implications,” he said.
Hancox said one of the major benefits of the research programme would be the training of new students, adding that, although the programme’s initial funding was only for three years, a number of PhD and MSc candidates would hopefully be attracted, which would, in turn, extend the life of the programme.