Mike Hall
2010
The Selwyn Medal is named in honour of Sir Alfred Selwyn, an eminent Victorian pioneering geologist and founder of the Geological Survey of Victoria. It is awarded, usually yearly, to recognise significant ongoing or former contributions of high calibre to any field of Victorian geology. A candidate for this medal should have made a major contribution to new knowledge of the geology of Victoria, or a significant reinterpretation of it based on critical observations, or has contributed importantly to a major mineral or oil discovery, or have produced important geological publications or have been involved successfully in the development of the geological profession.
Mike Hall was born in Dunedin, brought up in Palmerston North, New Zealand, and educated at Victoria University, Wellington, and at Imperial College, London, where he completed a PhD under the famous structural geologist John Ramsey, on the structural evolution of the Ticino area in the southern Swiss Alps.
Over a distinguished geological career spanning 50 years, Mike has worked in the international and domestic minerals and petroleum industries, for governments, and also in academia. During this time he has made significant geological discoveries in all of the world’s continents, as well as all states within Australia. He has also served the Geological Society of Australia as a former chairman of the WA division and as a committee member in Victoria.
His initial employment was in field mapping for the New Zealand Geological Survey. He also completed a three month field season mapping in the Ellsworth Mountains in Antarctica.
He subsequently worked for BHP for 31 years, initially in the minerals exploration area, based in Western Australia, Queensland, Tasmania and Victoria, and subsequently as a specialist structural geologist for petroleum exploration and production, based in Melbourne.
Since 1995 he has been Professor at the School of Earth Sciences at Monash University, where he has taught large numbers of students, and supervised to a successful conclusion 2 PhD, 11 Honours and 5 MSc students. He has taught BSc students in basin analysis, coal and petroleum, structural geology and seismic interpretation. He also helped supervise the 3rd year geological mapping camp at Broken Hill, and conducted a number of VIEPS courses in basin analysis and sequence stratigraphy to honours students at Monash, Melbourne and La Trobe Universities. He organised and ran field excursions to the Otway Basin for VIEPS and several industry conferences. Even though he officially retired in 2006, he has continued to teach the Monash BSc 3rd year course in sediments, basins and resources, and is currently supervising or joint-supervising 4 PhD, 1 MSc and 2 Honours students.
He was closely involved with the setting up and initial management of the Australian Geodynamics Cooperative Research Centre, which involved liaison with a wide range of academic, government institutions and petroleum exploration companies around Australia.
Among his many other accomplishments, he has made substantial contributions to Victorian geology in the following fields:-
There were also numerous other highlights of his industrial career outside of Victoria, including the following:-
He continues to be active both in the petroleum and geothermal industries in Victoria through his association with the 3D-Geo geological consultancy, and also through supervision of further honours and postgraduate students at Monash University. In addition to research in the Otway Basin, he has ongoing structural geological projects in northern and southwestern Tasmania and New Zealand, particularly the Wanganui and Wairarapa basins. In recent years he has expanded his research portfolio to include sedimentological and basin analysis studies in the Late Tertiary basins of New Zealand, Cretaceous break-up basins in Brazil and sedimentological studies on the palaeoenvironmental context of newly discovered Edicaran fossils in Namibia.
Mike Hall was born in Dunedin, brought up in Palmerston North, New Zealand, and educated at Victoria University, Wellington, and at Imperial College, London, where he completed a PhD under the famous structural geologist John Ramsey, on the structural evolution of the Ticino area in the southern Swiss Alps.
Over a distinguished geological career spanning 50 years, Mike has worked in the international and domestic minerals and petroleum industries, for governments, and also in academia. During this time he has made significant geological discoveries in all of the world’s continents, as well as all states within Australia. He has also served the Geological Society of Australia as a former chairman of the WA division and as a committee member in Victoria.
His initial employment was in field mapping for the New Zealand Geological Survey. He also completed a three month field season mapping in the Ellsworth Mountains in Antarctica.
He subsequently worked for BHP for 31 years, initially in the minerals exploration area, based in Western Australia, Queensland, Tasmania and Victoria, and subsequently as a specialist structural geologist for petroleum exploration and production, based in Melbourne.
Since 1995 he has been Professor at the School of Earth Sciences at Monash University, where he has taught large numbers of students, and supervised to a successful conclusion 2 PhD, 11 Honours and 5 MSc students. He has taught BSc students in basin analysis, coal and petroleum, structural geology and seismic interpretation. He also helped supervise the 3rd year geological mapping camp at Broken Hill, and conducted a number of VIEPS courses in basin analysis and sequence stratigraphy to honours students at Monash, Melbourne and La Trobe Universities. He organised and ran field excursions to the Otway Basin for VIEPS and several industry conferences. Even though he officially retired in 2006, he has continued to teach the Monash BSc 3rd year course in sediments, basins and resources, and is currently supervising or joint-supervising 4 PhD, 1 MSc and 2 Honours students.
He was closely involved with the setting up and initial management of the Australian Geodynamics Cooperative Research Centre, which involved liaison with a wide range of academic, government institutions and petroleum exploration companies around Australia.
Among his many other accomplishments, he has made substantial contributions to Victorian geology in the following fields:-
- He was a committee member for the Geological Society of Australia Victorian branch for a number of years. He was a co-organiser of the Carey Symposium at the Australian Geological Convention at Ballarat in 1992, and a former treasurer of the Structural Geology and Tectonics Specialist Group and the Economic Geology Specialist Group. In addition, he was a former committee member for the Vic/Tas branch of the Petroleum Exploration Society of Australia.
- One of his major scientific successes in recent years has been to rejuvenate the structural and stratigraphic understanding of the Otway Basin via detailed outcrop mapping and integration with industry seismic data, and regional gravity and magnetic data. He has helped to promulgate the geological understanding of the Otway Basin by leading numerous field trips to the Otway coastal outcrops for industry, academic conferences and students. Even now, this work is entering a new phase via his acquisition of new outcrop and geophysical data.
- He played a key part in the discovery and appraisal of the Minerva Gas Field offshore Port Campbell while he was working at BHP. It was through his structural and stratigraphic discoveries that the presence and complex internal structure and stratigraphy of Minerva Gas Field were able to be unravelled.
- His former students are now occupying numerous senior positions in the Victorian petroleum and minerals industry as well as elsewhere.
- He was involved with promoting new interpretations of the Palaeozoic geology of Victoria and its offshore connections with Tasmanian geology through the use of regional geophysical datasets and from geological mapping along the coasts of Victoria and northwest Tasmania.
There were also numerous other highlights of his industrial career outside of Victoria, including the following:-
- He was instrumental in recognising the succession of younger Proterozoic rocks along the eastern edge of the Gibson desert, and also identified what was then a new sedimentary basin - the Nabbern (or Nabberu) Basin.
- The discovery and evaluation of the lead-zinc sulphide deposits, including the Blendeville, Cadjebut and Nevoria accumulations, hosted in Devonian carbonates on the Lennard Shelf in the Canning Basin.
- He installed the structural geological methods that were used to guide BHP’s exploration and appraisal programme in the Timor Sea and elsewhere, leading to the discovery and development of oil and gas fields in complicated block-faulted traps.
- Helped to solve the complex fold structures of the Kutabu oil and gas fields in PNG and to successfully locate exploration and appraisal wells in areas that were then without seismic data.
- Led field work in the Lengguru Fold Belt of Indonesian West Papua to look for structural analogues of the PNG oil and gas fields.
- Identified and evaluated the fold structures of the Indus Fold Belt in Pakistan that ultimately led to the discovery of the Zamzama gas field.
- Dissected the structural complexities of the Dai Hung oil and gas field offshore Vietnam.
- He prepared and taught internal structural geology courses for BHP Petroleum’s geologists in Melbourne, Houston and London, and organised and led an annual sequence stratigraphy and structural field course to the coastal exposures in the Otway Basin.
He continues to be active both in the petroleum and geothermal industries in Victoria through his association with the 3D-Geo geological consultancy, and also through supervision of further honours and postgraduate students at Monash University. In addition to research in the Otway Basin, he has ongoing structural geological projects in northern and southwestern Tasmania and New Zealand, particularly the Wanganui and Wairarapa basins. In recent years he has expanded his research portfolio to include sedimentological and basin analysis studies in the Late Tertiary basins of New Zealand, Cretaceous break-up basins in Brazil and sedimentological studies on the palaeoenvironmental context of newly discovered Edicaran fossils in Namibia.
