Oral Presentation NCGRT/IAH Australasian Groundwater Conference 2019

GAB Bore Doctor (499)

Brendon I. Isbister 1
  1. Department of Environment and Science, Dutton Park, QLD, Australia

Great Artesian Basin (GAB) springs were used by the indigenous people for millennia. European settlements in the GAB regions would have been impossible without artesian bore water supplies for stock and domestic uses.

Currently, there are about 4167 registered bores in Queensland, with depths ranging from 120 to 1750 m. Due to issues associated with bore integrity (bore construction practices of the past, age of the bores, and groundwater quality), a large number of the bores required reconditioning/rehabilitation.

This paper describes borehole-geophysical logging surveys (physical probing, down the hole camera survey, calliper; temperature, gamma and density logging). Based on the experience of the last three decades, the suite of methods selected, are the most cost effective methods to determine thickness and physicochemical properties of geological layers in production and monitoring bores in the GAB. This information is essential for proper construction of water-supply bores, assessment of groundwater quality and rehabilitation of GAB bores.