MEC Resources Limited announced that Advent Energy has further reviewed research reports by the Australian Government Agency Geoscience Australia. The report confirmed natural gas features in the Offshore Sydney Basin and identified a series of large pockmarks. It is significant that the sediment directly above the fault is disturbed and distinctive circular depressions occur in the sea floor. These depressions are likely to be caused by methane gas and fluid from the Permian coal measures escaping along the fault plane. On the mid slope between the Newcastle Canyons are a number of depressions on the seafloor. These are large features and for example, extend 750 m across slope, with side scarps showing slopes over 20º and floors 70 m below the rims. These features resemble those found on sidescan records from the Mississippi Delta known as "collapse depressions" and result from gas and fluid expulsion from subsurface Units (e.g., Prior and Coleman, 1980). It is considered likely that the features found off Newcastle are also depressions formed from gas and/or fluid escape.