Organic geochemical research in the Mawson Laboratories, The University of Adelaide—1967 to 2024: a memoir

Organic geochemical research at The University of Adelaide began in 1967 when the author embarked on a study of the hydrocarbons preserved in the Early Cambrian trilobite-rich Emu Bay Shale from the Stansbury Basin on Kangaroo Island and in the Late Proterozoic microfossiliferous McMinn Formation from the McArthur Basin, Northern Territory. Subsequently, this field of research in the Mawson Laboratories over the ensuing five and a half decades encompassed the sub-disciplines of biogeochemistry, palaeolimnology, palaeoclimatology and palaeoecology. The sediments, sedimentary rocks and fluids analysed range in age from Archaean to Holocene. This paper is a short account of that research and its outcomes, as documented in a large number of theses and publications.