Phillip Playford | |
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Born | |
Died | 12 July 2017 85) | (aged
Phillip Elliott Playford AM (27 November 1931 – 12 July 2017) [1] was an Australian geologist who made important contributions to sedimentary geology, oil exploration in Western Australia, maritime history, [2] and made contributions to the recording of Aboriginal art and culture from the north of Western Australia.
In 1958 a major multi-author publication laid the foundation of the modern understanding of the stratigraphy of the major sedimentary basins of the State, enabling oil exploration to occur. [3] [4] The following year Phillip Playford and Murray Johnstone prepared a paper for the AAPG summarising the status of oil exploration in Australia. [5] [6] This paper played as significant role in increasing international awareness of Australia's petroleum potential.
Documentation of the Devonian Reef, led by Playford, stimulated exploration which led to the Blina and associated oil fields. Detailed knowledge of the Carnarvon Basin, Playford's life work, eventually led to the discovery of the Barrow Island oilfield, which in turn was a trigger for the spread for the exploration of the offshore, now the most active area in Australia. Work on the geology of the Perth Basin, led by Playford, provided a basis for the exploration which eventually led to the discovery of the Dongara and other gas fields. [7]
Playford's major work has been on the Devonian reef complexes of the Canning Basin, first publishing a GSWA bulletin on their geology in 1996. Regular updates on the geology of the Devonian reef complexes continued even while working in leadership roles in the Mines Department in the 1980s and 1990s. This, together with the supervision of PhD and postgraduate projects from universities around the world, culminated in the publication in 2009 of a major publication. [8] The Devonian reef complexes form a spectacular belt of rugged limestone ranges that extends for 350 kilometres (220 mi) along the northern edge of Western Australia's Canning Basin. These complexes are regarded as the world's best example of an exposed ancient barrier reef system, and have become known as the Devonian Great Barrier Reef. The rocks regarded as a model for similar reefs that host prolific oilfields elsewhere in the world.
Playford discovered the stromatolites at Hamelin Pool in July 1954 when he and Daryl Johnstone were working in the Shark Bay area. The work in Shark Bay culminated in a comprehensive publication in 2013 that showcases the geology of this World Heritage Area. [9] It includes details of living stromatolites, quaternary coastal geology and evidence of past mega-tsunamis. It also covers the cultural heritage of the area, including Aboriginal history and details of the wreck of the Zuytdorp in 1712.
Playford had a long history working on Rottnest Island, off the coast of Perth. He found freshwater on the island which, until that time, was being delivered from the mainland, and named many landmarks on the island including Wadjemup Hill (Aboriginal name for the hill), Pearse Lakes (after an island superintendent), Lake Vincent (after Henry Vincent, another superintendent of the island), and Fairbridge Bluff in Salmon Bay (after his UWA lecturer and mentor Rhodes Fairbridge). Playford wrote about the island's geology, illustrating dramatic changes in sea level (of up to 2.5 metres or 8 feet 2 inches) over the last 6000 years. In addition, he also located fossil coral reefs 120,000 years old 3 metres (9.8 ft) above sea level, which indicate the ocean was warmer then than it is today. [10]
At Tamala Station in 1954, elderly stockman Tom Pepper told Playford how he had found the remains of an old sailing ship and showed him coins and other objects he had picked up at the wreck site. Playford set off alone one weekend in a vehicle to bush bash and locate the site 64 kilometres (40 mi) from his geological camp based on verbal direction from Tom Pepper. The coins were dated 1711 and provided the vital clue for Playford to finally identify the wreck as being the Dutch ship Zuytdorp. Both Tom Pepper and Phillip Playford were named joint discoverers of the wreck in 1994 by the Western Australian Government. The Zuytdorp Cliffs are a defining feature of the Western Australian coastline and the name was proposed by Playford arising from the discovery of the name of this major wreck site.
Playford wrote a book on the Zuytdorp entitled 'Carpet of Silver; the wreck of the Zuytdorp'. This book, published in 1996 by UWA Press, won a Western Australian Premier's Book Awards [11] in 1997, and was reprinted in 1998 and 2006.
He also wrote 'Voyage of Discovery to Terra Australia by Willem de Vlamingh in 1696–97' (published by the WA Museum in 1998 and reprinted in 1999) [12] and 'The Life and Times of Dirk Hartog' with co-authors Robert Cribb, Greetje Bouma and Cor Boer. [13]
While working on the Devonian limestones Playford spent a lot of time talking to elderly Aborigines and was able to determine the mythological significance of the paintings, and to map the tribal territories, publishing the results in 1960. This was the first detailed tribal distribution map to be produced for the West Kimberley's.
In these papers he illustrated and discussed the remarkable cave art from the West Kimberley. The rock art on the West Kimberley had been very little studied and the sites he described had not been published previously.
Playford also made tape recordings of song cycles recounting the journeys of the great culture heroes of the dreamtime, and collecting the Aboriginal names and associated mythology of hundreds of features through the limestone ranges. These tape recordings and collections have been lodged in the WA Museum and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies in Canberra.
Many of the Aboriginal names have been recorded on the new series of geological maps that accompany Playford's publication on Devonian Reef complexes. [8] In 1964 Playford joined an expedition run by the Native Welfare Department that succeeded in locating many Aboriginal peoples living traditional lives in the Great Sandy and Gibson Deserts without having seen Europeans previously. Some elected to go to missions but others remained to return “some moons later” and then elected to move to missions within 12 months. Some of Playford's photographs from this expedition are held by the WA Museum.
Year | Award |
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1959 | Fulbright scholarship (to Stanford University) |
1990 | Gibb Maitland Medalist of the geological society of Australia [14] |
1991 | Special Commendation Award, American Association of Petroleum Geologists (the first non-American recipient) |
1993 | Fellow, Australian Academy of Technological science and Engineering |
1998 | Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for contributions to geology and the history of early Dutch exploration and shipwrecks in Australia [15] |
1995 | Lewis G Weeks Gold Medal, Australian Petroleum Exploration Association [16] |
2001 | Medal of the Royal Society of Western Australia [17] |
Windjana Gorge National Park is a national park in the Kimberley region of Western Australia, 1855 km northeast of Perth and 355 km east of Broome. It is open during the dry season only, usually April to November.
The Swan River Colony, also known as the Swan River Settlement, or just Swan River, was a British colony established in 1829 on the Swan River, in Western Australia. This initial settlement place on the Swan River was soon named Perth, and it became the capital city of Western Australia.
Willem Hesselsz de Vlamingh was a Dutch sea captain who explored the central west coast of New Holland (Australia) in the late 17th century, where he landed in what is now Perth on the Swan River. The mission proved fruitless, but he charted parts of the continent's western coast.
Zuytdorp, also Zuiddorp was an 18th-century trading ship of the Dutch East India Company.
The Canning Basin is a geological basin located in Western Australia. Deposition of sediments began after early-Ordovician thermal subsidence, and continued into the Early Cretaceous.
Charles Richard Stelck, O.C., Ph.D., F.R.S.C., P.Geol. was a Canadian petroleum geologist, paleontologist, stratigrapher, and university professor. He is known for his pioneering work on unraveling the stratigraphy of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin, and his inspired use of biostratigraphy as an exploration tool for finding petroleum and natural gas fields.
The Zuytdorp Cliffs extend for about 150 km (93 mi) along a rugged, spectacular and little visited segment of the Western Australian Indian Ocean coast. The cliffs extend from just south of the mouth of the Murchison River at Kalbarri, to Pepper Point south of Steep Point. The cliffs are situated in both the Gascoyne and Mid West regions of the state.
Fred F. Meissner was an American geologist and engineer who contributed to the fields of geology, geophysics, engineering, petroleum engineering, geochemistry, mineralogy, physics, mining, economic geology, and fishing.
The petroleum industry in Western Australia is the largest contributor to the country's petroleum exports. Western Australia's North West Shelf (NWS) is the primary location from which production originates. Oil exports are shipped from Port Hedland.
The Leduc Formation is a stratigraphic unit of Late Devonian (Frasnian) age in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. It takes its name from the city of Leduc, and it was formally described from the B.A. Pyrz No. 1 well in central Alberta, between the depths of 1,623.7 m (5,327 ft) and 1,807.5 m (5,930 ft), by Imperial Oil Limited in 1950. Supplementary information came from a complete section of the formation that was cored in Imperial Oil's Leduc No. 530 well between 1,633 m (5,358 ft) and 1,863 m (6,112 ft).
The Muskeg Formation is a geologic formation of Middle Devonian (Givetian) age in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. It extends from the plains of northwestern Alberta to northeastern British Columbia, and includes important petroleum and natural gas reservoirs in the Zama lake and Rainbow Lake areas of northwestern Alberta.
The Beaverhill Lake Group is a geologic unit of Middle Devonian to Late Devonian age in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin that is present in the southwestern Northwest Territories, northeastern British Columbia and Alberta. It was named by the geological staff of Imperial Oil in 1950 for Beaverhill Lake, Alberta, based on the core from a well that they had drilled southeast of the lake, near Ryley, Alberta.
Rupert Gerritsen was an Australian historian and a noted authority on Indigenous Australian prehistory. Coupled with his work on early Australian cartography, he played an influential part in re-charting Australian history prior to its settlement by the British in 1788, and noted evidence of agriculture and settlements on the continent before the arrival of settlers.
Rottnest Island lies 18 kilometres (11 mi) west of the coastline of Perth, Western Australia; it is 4.5 kilometres (2.8 mi) at its widest and 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) at its longest.
The Oscar Range is a small, low mountain range in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. It is approximately 40 km long and 6–8 km wide. The range sits on the edge of the Lennard Shelf.
The Cairn Formation is a geologic formation of Late Devonian (Frasnian) age in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. It was named for the Cairn River near its junction with the Southesk River in Jasper National Park by D.J. McLaren in 1955.
The Southesk Formation is a stratigraphic unit of Late Devonian age. It is present on the western edge of the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin in the Rocky Mountains and foothills of Alberta and southeastern British Columbia. It was named for the Southesk River in Jasper National Park by D.J. McLaren in 1955.
Lindsay Boyd Collins was an Australian marine geologist and sedimentologist, and a faculty member in the Department of Applied Geology at Curtin University in Western Australia. He was interested in studying the continental shelf of Western Australia and coral reefs. Collins was a prominent scholar, and completed projects on continental shelf mapping of Australian shelves, microbialites and seagrass banks at Shark Bay, and coral reef studies at the Abrolhos, Ningaloo, Scott Reef, the Rowley Shoals and the Kimberley.
The Tarfaya Basin is a structural basin located in southern Morocco that extends westward into the Moroccan territorial waters in the Atlantic Ocean. The basin is named for the city of Tarfaya located near the border of Western Sahara, a region governed by the Kingdom of Morocco. The Canary Islands form the western edge of the basin and lie approximately 100 km to the west.
The Malgana are an Aboriginal Australian people of Western Australia.
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