John James Veevers

Macquarie University · ARC National Key Centre for Geochemical Evolution and Metallogeny of Continents (GEMOC)

Permian-Triassic Pangean Basins and Foldbelts Along the Panthalassan Margin of Gondwanaland:

We test the hypothesis that the Transgondwanan Supermountains at the collision of East and West Gondwanaland were the provenance of a vast turbiditic fan that stretched alongside the East Gondwanaland margin to eastern Australia which, in turn, became the provenance of sediment shed into interior Australia to the Cretaceous Ceduna Delta in central-...

The Quaternary beach sand of SE Australia, driven northward by southern swell, contains zircons with dominant U–Pb ages of 700–500 Ma, model ages (T DMc) of 2.2 Ga to 1.0 Ga, and Hf of +12 to –30, indicating a host rock type of granitoids with alkaline affinity. These properties match those of detrital zircons in the Middle Triassic (ca 240 Ma) Haw...

A robust geochronology based on U–Pb zircon ages in Australia (n = 158) and Europe (n = 376) provides a rigorous test of (1) the model of a climatic–tectonic cycle of a single continent (Pangea) and ocean (Panthalassa) with an icehouse climate alternating with many continents and oceans with a greenhouse climate, and (2) the idea of coeval (320 to...

The age and composition of the 14 × 106 km2 of Antarctica's surface obscured by ice is unknown except for some dated detrital minerals and erratics. In remedy, we present four new analyses (U–Pb age, TDMC, εHf, and rock type) of detrital zircons from Neogene turbidites as proxies of Antarctic bedrock, and review published proxies: detrital hornblen...

The initial (200–175 Ma) breakup of Pangea was marked by the emplacement of the Large Igneous Provinces (LIPs) of Karoo–Ferrar-SE Australia (KFS) in the back-arc of Panthalassan subduction and by the Central Atlantic Magmatic Province (CAMP) between Africa and the Americas. Seafloor spreading 190–180 Ma (Stage 1) about the CAMP split Pangea into no...

The origins of the Gamburtsev mountain range, which is hidden beneath Antarctic ice, are a long-standing mystery. Detailed geophysical data from the area form the basis of a comprehensive model that solves the mystery. See Letter p.388

The age and composition of the 14×106km2 of Antarctica's surface obscured by ice is unknown except for some dates on detrital minerals. In remedy, we bring together proxies of Antarctic bedrock in the form of (1) detrital zircons analysed for U–Pb age, TDMC, εHf, and rock type, including five new analyses of Neogene turbidites, (2) erratics that re...

The Permian–Jurassic Mahanadi and Pranhita–Godavari Rifts are part of a drainage system that radiated from the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains in central Antarctica. From 12 samples we analysed detrital zircons for U–Pb ages, Hf-isotopes, and trace elements to determine the age, rock type and source of the host magma, and TDM model age. Clusters, i...

The passive continental margins of India and conjugate Antarctica (30°–80° E) have been reconstructed quantitatively by eliminating the intervening ocean floor. Recently acquired seismic and gravity data from the margins define the boundary between continental and oceanic crust (COB) and indicate the thickness of the extended (rifted) continental c...

In 1987 C. McA. Powell and J. J. Veevers postulated that the mid-Carboniferous uplift of the Centralian fold-and-thrust belt led to the growth of an ice sheet that covered much of Australia as it drifted from low to high latitudes. They presumed that the voluminous sediment shed from the final disruption and stripping to basement of the Centralian...

Permian–Triassic drainage radiates from the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains (GSM) in central Antarctica. Proximal to the GSM are Permian–Triassic fluvial sandstones in the Prince Charles Mountains (PCM), and neighbouring ?Triassic red beds in Prydz Bay (PB) ODP740A. We analysed detrital zircons for U–Pb ages, Hf-isotope compositions, and trace elem...

Clasts of red siltstone with Glossopteris from moraine around Mt Rymill in the southern Prince Charles Mountains, East Antarctica, can be traced upslope in the Lambert Graben system to the nearby Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains (GSM). The clasts contain zircons with SHRIMP U–Pb ages of 620–460 Ma and 1300–970 Ma from host rocks of intermediate to m...

In conjugate SE Africa and Antarctica, Early Permian sandstones of the Swartrant Formation of the Ellisras Basin, Vryheid Formation of the Karoo Basin, and Amelang Plateau Formation of Dronning Maud Land (DML) were deposited after Gondwanan glaciation on a westward paleoslope. We analysed detrital zircons for U-Pb ages by a laser ablation microprob...

The stress from the initial coalescence of Pangaea during the mid-Carboniferous (320 Ma) collision of Gondwanaland and Laurussia in the Variscan (Sudetic) magmatic fold belt was transmitted through Pangaea to generate the nappes and thrusts that dismembered the intracratonic Centralian Superbasin during the Alice Springs Orogeny and the megakinks t...

Pan-Gondwanaland (650–500 Ma) tectonics is dominated by transcurrent motions driven by post-collisional oblique stresses. Extension is commonly marked by the intrusion of alkaline rocks, in particular A-type granite, nepheline syenite, and carbonatites (ARCs), during or after collision, as well as by field studies. ARCs of this age are common in Af...

The existing data on Late Mesozoic and Cenozoic seafloor spreading isochrons and fracture zone trends provide the basis for 12 reconstructions of the seafloor around Australia. The major changes of plate geometry in the Jurassic, Early Cretaceous, mid-Cretaceous, early Paleocene and early Eocene reflect global events. The pattern of spreading aroun...

Eastern Australian sediments of Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian–Devonian, Triassic, and Neogene ages are known to be dominated by zircons dated 700–500 Ma (“Southwest Pacific–Gondwana igneous component”) by the U–Pb SHRIMP method, and thought to be derived from Antarctica, as suggested also by paleogeographical evidence. To extend the characteristic...

Permo-Carboniferous glaciation, confined to icecaps and mountain glaciers, was followed by Permian coal measures and Early Triassic barren measures and redbeds, in the east terminally deformed in the mid-Triassic. Coal deposition resumed during the Late Triassic, and tholeiite was erupted in the southeast. After rifting, the western margin was form...

From 650–500 Ma assembly, 320 Ma merger in Pangea, to 185 Ma breakup, Gondwanaland developed by the accretion of lithosphere along the convergent edge on the south and by the export of terranes from the divergent edges on the west and northeast. The interior underwent epeirogenic movement except in areas affected during the merger by farfield short...

Detrital zircons from the Permian Collie Coal Measures and modern sands on the northern part of the Albany Province have been analysed for U–Pb ages by a laser ablation microprobe-inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (LAM-ICPMS) and for Hf-isotope compositions by a laser ablation microprobe multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass sp...

Gondwanaland lasted from the 650–500 Ma (late Neoproterozoic-Cambrian) amalgamation of African and South American terranes to Antarctica–Australia–India through 320 Ma (mid-Carboniferous) merging with Laurussia in Pangea to breakup from 185 to 100 Ma (Jurassic and Early Cretaceous). Gondwanaland straddled the equator at 540 Ma, lay wholly in the So...

Gondwanaland was assembled by 650 570 Ma oblique subduction of ocean floor between cratons, including the Mozambique Ocean between West and East Gondwanaland. Oblique convergence set the cratons into a series of counterrotating cogs that sheared the intervening fold belts. The 550 490 Ma oblique subduction of paleo-Pacific ocean floor beneath Antar...

Seven sulfur-isotope stages are apparent in Australian Neoproterozoic sections. (1) From 840 Ma to the Sturtian glaciation (700 Ma) δ34Ssulfate varied little (+19 to +17.5‰) and δ34Ssulfide ranged from −20 to +23‰. (2) The Sturtian glaciation was followed by (3) a rise in δ34Ssulfide to an average of +30‰ (seen also in China, Namibia and Canada) an...

We construct a time scale for the 840–544Ma Neoproterozoic interval from isotopic variation of δ13Ccarbonate and δ13Corganic, 87Sr/86Sr, and δ34Ssulfate in seawater measured from reference columns in Canada and Australia. We distinguish 18 features (Z–I) in the δ13Ccarbonate and δ13Corganic curves: two intervals of well-defined variation in 87Sr/86...

The clockwise bend at 99 Ma (mid-Cretaceous) in linear volcanic chains in the tropical Pacific coincides with a change from pre-99 Ma head-on Chilean-type subduction of the Pacific plate beneath eastern Gondwana to 99 43 Ma sinistral oblique Mariana-type subduction and strike-slip breakup by simple sea-floor spreading between Australia and Antarcti...

Unequivocal evidence for the Proterozoic reconstruction of Australia-Antarctica and Laurentia remains elusive, although various authors have interpreted sedimentary and igneous events in terms of initial (Neoproterozoic) rifting, and final (Neoproterozoic/Cambrian) drifting. The synchronous rifting and drifting reflect the tectonics of a late Neopr...

Increasingly precise stratigraphic resolution by biostratigraphy, isotope stratigraphy, and sequence analysis in the Neoproterozoic allows more convincing palaeogeographic reconstructions than hitherto possible, so that the original connections amongst structural basins can be demonstrated. The Neoproterozoic stratigraphy of Australia can now be an...

Early Triassic coals are unknown, and Middle Triassic coals are rare and thin. The Early Triassic coal gap began with extinction of peat-forming plants at the end of the Permian (ca. 250 Ma), with no coal known anywhere until Middle Triassic (243 Ma). Permian levels of plant diversity and peat thickness were not recovered until Late Triassic (230 M...

The basement of central Australia includes the Arunta Block and the 1200-1100 Ma Musgrave Block succeeded by 1075-1000 Ma bimodal volcanic rifts and dolerite dykes. A regional hiatus at 1000-800 Ma, interpreted as reflecting a central post-volcanic (underplated) upland, was followed at 800 Ma by a second swarm of dykes in the Musgrave Block, Gawler...

Gondwanaland was buoyant, as indicated by nonmarine facies, and Laurasia was depressed, as indicated by marine facies. As a supercontinent, Gondwanaland lasted much longer than Laurasia and was hotter from internal heat. Moreover, the Pan-African orogenic cycle, confined to Gondwanaland, augmented the heat supply, which possibly generated a permane...

Deposition in the Gondwana master basin of Peninsular India occurred during latest Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, and Early Jurassic times on a basement of Archean and Proterozoic rocks between the Tethyan margin and interior of the Gondwanaland province of Pangea. Gondwana deposition ceased with the breakup of Greater India from the rest of Gon...

Three basement trends, defined by the 1.0-0.5 Ga foldbelts of weak crust that wrap around the 1 Ga Namaqua-Natal Belt and >2.5 Ga Kaapvaal Province, provide a tub-shaped template that was impressed on succeeding structures up to the Cretaceous breakup of Pangea along the present divergent margins. The pattern is reprinted during the Ordovician-Devo...

Profound short-lived events about the Permian/Triassic (P/Tr) boundary, determined here as 250 Ma, include (1) magmatic events: rapid eruption of the vast flood basalt of the Siberian Traps and the peak of convergent magmatism in the Gondwanaland province along the Panthalassan margin, represented in Australia by the Dundee/Emmaville Volcanics and...

The Sydney-Gunnedah-Bowen Basin developed above the junction between (a) the western, early to mid-Paleozoic Lachlan and Thomson Fold Belts, terminally deformed and intruded in the mid-Carboniferous, and (b) the eastern, mid- to late Paleozoic New England Fold Belt (NEFB). Accordingly, the basement of the Sydney- Gunnedah-Bowen Basin varies along s...

The Permian-Triassic (Gondwanan) basins and foldbelts along the Panthalassan margin of the Gondwanaland province of Pangea developed on a basement of Proterozoic and Paleozoic rocks in Antarctica and southern Africa and on a basement of foldbelts terminally deformed at the end of the Devonian (360 Ma) in southern South America and in the mid-Carbon...

In central-western Argentina, the basement comprises Cambrian to Devonian sedimentary rocks, deformed and uplifted during the Late Devonian-earliest Carboniferous Chanic orogeny along the Paleo-Pacific margin of South America. Unconformably above basement, the Gondwana cycle comprises two unconformitybounded sequences. The Visean (350 Ma) to earlie...

During Permian and Triassic times, the Gondwana sequence of India, lateral equivalents in southern Australia and southeastern Africa, and an upslope equivalent in coastal East Antarctica were deposited in a 7500 km sector of valleys and lobes that radiated through 180° of arc from an inferred upland in East Antarctica. Initially glacigenic, subsequ...

This paper updates the models of seafloor spreading magnetic anomalies in the oceanic lithosphere of the Indo‐Australian Plate and adjacent plates around Australia. The regions are the eastern Indian Ocean (Argo, Gascoyne, Cuvier and Perth Abyssal Plains), the southeast Indian Ocean (off the southern margin of Australia and the conjugate Wilkes Lan...

Phanerozoic Australia was marked by three regimes: Uluru (570-320 Ma), Innamincka (320-97 Ma) and Potoroo (97-0 Ma). Each regime, a complex of uniform plate-tectonic and palaeo-climatic events at a similar or slowly changing latitude, generated a depositional sequence of distinct facies bounded by unconformities at the margins and by stratigraphic...

The earth alternates in a supercycle 400 m.y. long from a single continent (Pangea) and ocean (Panthalassa) with an icehouse climate to many continents and oceans with a greenhouse climate. The supercycle is driven by the heat that accumulates beneath the insulator of Pangea, and the greenhouse is made by the excess CO2 vented from the mantle durin...

Sea floor spreading between Antarctica and Australia was resolved into two stages: (1) fast (27 mm/year), from the present to 49 Ma on a northerly azimuth constrained by well mapped fracture zones; and (2) slow (4.5 mm/year), from 49 Ma to break‐up at 96 Ma. A northwesterly azimuth was inferred by interpolation between the position of the continent...

The Phanerozoic history of continental dispersal and coalescence contains an epoch of radical change at about the Middle/Late Triassic boundary (230 ±5 Ma), marked by (1) the final coalescence of Pangea by the contact of south China and Cimmeria with Laurasia and terminal compressive deformation in Australia and southern Africa, and (2) the incipie...

Extension of continental crust by up to 360 km on a north-northeast azimuth in the Great Australian Bight occurred prior to the Middle Cretaceous (96 Ma) onset of seafloor spreading between Australia and Antarctica. This large amount of continental extension is constrained to the Late Jurassic (≈ 160 Ma)-Middle Cretaceous interval, about a pole est...

The seafloor off the Otway/West Tasmanian Basins has an east-west magnetic lineation attributable to seafloor spreading and notionally identified with the set of seafloor spreading anomalies A8-A20. Anomaly A20 (45 Ma) lies immediately south of a magnetic quiet zone that extends northward past the continent-ocean boundary (COB). The Southeast India...

Previous reconstructions of Antarctica and Australia were made by fitting the bathymetric outlines of the conjugate margins and aligning pre‐existing structures; the precise position of the continent‐ocean boundary (COB) and the amount and azimuth of pre‐breakup extension were unknown. Seismic and magnetic data collected off Wilkes Land by the S.P....

The late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic Gondwana sequence of peninsular India and its equivalents in the present southern continents were deposited during the merging of the continents in Pangea and are a facies of the Pangean super-sequence distinguished by late Carboniferous and Early Permian glacial deposits and a provincial biota, in particular t...

The Permo-Carboniferous glacigenic sediment at the base of the Gondwanan basins reflects the culmination1,2 of the glacial episode that started in Australia and southern South America in the Namurian, after two local episodes in northern South America and adjacent Africa in the Visean and latest Devonian3 (Fig. 1). Here we show that the start of ea...

The three levels of correlations confirm Wanless and Shepard's (1936) hypothesis that the Late Paleozoic cyclothems are controlled largely by sea-level fluctuations related to the Gondwanaland glaciation. -from Authors

A positive magnetic anomaly marks the seaward edge of the magnetic quiet zone along the southern margin of Australia eastward between 114° and 131°E and along the conjugate Antarctic margin between 105° and 132°E. This anomaly was originally interpreted as the oldest seafloor-spreading anomaly-A22, revised by Cande and Mutter to A34-in the Southeas...

A prominent positive magnetic anomaly, with amplitude as great as 1400 nT, lies along the lower slope between the northern Exmouth Plateau, characterized seismically by faulted layered reflectors, and the Argo Abyssal Plain, characterized by hyperbolic reflectors. Because the slope of the northern Exmouth Plateau is floored by continental crust, as...

A comprehensive review of the Early Cretaceous seafloor-spreading magnetic anomalies (M0 to M10) in the eastern Indian Ocean leads to the isolation of a distinctive magnetic anomaly at the continent-ocean boundary (COB). The COB anomaly at the rifted margin is modelled by modifying the magnetization of the oldest oceanic block of the seafloor-sprea...

Australia's Eastern Highlands are a conspicuous manifestation of a tectonic regime that has been previously shown to go back at least 65 Ma. This review of the Mesozoic stratigraphy of eastern Australia gives evidence of a very different regime before 95 Ma, related to the presence of a plate boundary close to the present east coast of the continen...

The Cainozoic basalt chronology of the SE Highlands of Australia correlates with depositional cycles in the flanking basins, in particular the Murray and Gippsland Basins, and gives rise to the hypothesis that periods of more intense volcanism correspond with uplift of the Highlands and concomitant subsidence of the flanking basins. Conversely, per...

A morphotectonic depression, some 15 × 106 km2 in area and centred on the Australia-Antarctic discordance1, extends across the southern half of Australia through the south-east Indian Ocean to Wilkes Land in Antarctica (Fig. 1a, b). The depression is co-extensive with a negative satellite free-air gravity anomaly2 which suggests that the region is...

Most of the information on the western and northwestern margin of Australia has accrued during the past 20 years from petroleum and mineral exploration onshore, summarized by the Geological Survey of Western Australia (1975) and from exploration offshore by petroleum companies (Johnstone et al., 1973; Powell, 1976; Laws and Kraus, 1974), and by the...

Two morphotectonic features dominated the development of Australia's Phanerozoic sedimentary basins: a rifted arch on the divergent western and southern margins, such as exists today in East Africa-Arabia, and a volcanic arc on the convergent eastern margin, such as the present Andaman-Sumatran Arc. A presumed rifted-arch system, associated on one...

The Mesozoic forerunner of the western margin of Australia has been regarded tectonically as an ancient analogue of the multiple rift‐valley system of East Africa, which comprises two arms: volcanic on the E, and virtually non‐volcanic on the W. The abundance of widespread volcanics recently dredged and cored along the outermost margin, which corre...

M-series magnetic anomalies in the Mozambique Basin, off Dronning Maud Laud, and off the western margin of Australia, taken with other oceanic evidence, are used to test a new fit of Gondwanaland in which Madagascar adjoins the northern part of the western margin of India, the Falkland Plateau opposes part of Antarctica, and the southern part of So...

A revised model of seafloor spreading between India and Australia from the inception of spreading 125 m.y. to the change to a new system at 90 m.y. stems from the wider recognition of the M-series of magnetic anomalies off the southwestern margin of Australia, from a revised pole of opening between Australia and Antarctica, and by the extension in...

Recently available evidence provides the basis for a revised fit between East and West Gondwanaland before break-up in the Late Jurassic: deep-sea drilling shows that the entire Falkland Plateau is probably underlain by continental crust, marine geophysical studies off southeast Africa indicate large areas of thinned continental or transitional cru...

Palaeomagnetic data for five time intervals in the Phanerozoic are compared for a new fit of East (Antarctica, Australia, India) and West (Africa, Madagascar, South America) Gondwanaland and the hitherto durable fit of Smith and Hallam. The dispersion of the Palaeomagnetic poles is marginally less on the Smith and Hallam fit for four time intervals...

In a general lithospheric model of a simple divergent ocean and continental margin that satisfies the constraints of isostasy and gravity anomalies, the free-air gravity anomaly at the margin is modelled by an oceanic crust that thickens exponentially toward the margin from its common value of 6.4 km about 600 km from the margin to 17.7 km at the m...

The Channel Country, a region of wide fluvial plains criss-crossed by a reticulate pattern of anastomosing channels, and the adjacent sand dunes and clay pans of the Lake Eyre drainage basin occupy an area of 1.3 × 106 km2 of internal drainage in the arid east-central part of Australia. Beneath a surface of skin of mud, the sediment of the Channel...

Eighteen geophysical transects were made in the Argo Abyssal Plain to study the magnetic anomalies, bathymetry and seismic structure. Magnetic anomalies were identified as being the Mesozoic anomalies M-10 to M-25, increasing in age from the Java Trench to the northwest continental shelf of Australia. A new bathymetric map shows that the Argo Abyss...

Correlation of seismic profiles with the Pliocene and Quaternary facies at DSDP Site 262 in the axis of the 3 km deep Timor Trough shows that Australia and the lateral facies sequence of the Timor Trough foredeep that defines a topographic wave have approached each other by 80 km during the past 3 m.y. The Timor Trough and the island of Timor have...

In its evolution by plate divergence to a passive continental margin, a continental arch marked by narrow rift valleys (intra-arch basins) and flanked by broad basins (inter- and extra-arch basins) is most likely to break up along a rift valley boundary fault. The resulting dismembered arch at the continental margin is a rim that constitutes the oc...

Measurements of the crest of the spreading ridge in the young ocean basins of the Afar region and Gulf of Aden and in the mature Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans show that the depth of the ridge crest is correlated (r = 0.99) with the logarithm of the age of the ocean basin. Ridge crests in a very young basin (Afar) are at sea level, at about 1...

The major geological events on and alongside the Australasian‐Antarctic platform during the first half of the Phanerozoic (∼600–300 m.y. ago) are interpreted as repercussions of the first‐order events that took place along the Pacific and Tethyan margins. In turn, the clear signal of platform events provides a means of deciphering the noisy record...

Palaeomagnetism provides the chief constraints on models of the separation of Australia from other continents. Palaeomagnetic studies suggest that the various cratons that comprise the main Australian platform have maintained the same relative position from 1800 m.y. to 750 m.y. ago, and, in greater detail, that the Australian platform, excluding t...

Recent information from magnetic surveys and from deep-sea drilling allows Sclater and Fisher's Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic reconstructions of the eastern Indian Ocean to be extended back almost to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period. After a short phase of spreading off northwestern Australia in Middle and Late Jurassic time, Greater India and...

Evidence from the eastern Indian Ocean implies a Greater India in Gondwanaland. Translated without distortion to Asia, the northeast part of Greater India is found to correspond in shape with the Tibetan Plateau. With geophysical evidence, this suggests that the northeast part of Greater India underlies, presumably by underthrusting, the Tibetan Pl...

The continental margin of Western Australia is a rifted or “Atlantic”-type margin, with a complex physiography. The margin comprises a shelf, an upper and lower continental slope, marginal plateaus, a continental rise, and rise or lower slope foothills. Notches or terraces on the shelf reflect pre-Holocene deposition of prograded sediment, whose se...

pre-Eocene time. They named this ancient transform fault the Chagos Fracture Zone and suggested that during the Late Cretaceous and early Tertiary it marked the relative motion of the Indian plate relative to the African plate. The overall similarity of the present Ninetyeast Ridge to the Chagos Fracture Zone in the Eocene (cf. Fig. 42 of McKenzie...

Seaward of a wide (300 km) shelf in the north and a narrow (50–100 km) shelf in the south, the 3,000-km-long western margin of Australia is dominated by marginal plateaus. Tilt northern Scott and Exmouth Plateaus are terraces that lie between an upper low-gradient part of the slope and a lower steeper part, and the southern Wallaby Plateaus and the...

The sedimentary history of Australia suggests that Cretaceous transgressions occurred as a result of displacement of ocean water by elevated spreading ridges and of subsidence of continental interiors near subduction zones.

Shallow seismic sections from the 1967 B.M.R. marine geophysical survey of the Timor Sea were made with a Spark-array source and a Subot Hydrostreamer receiver along 4,500 miles of traverse across the outer shelf and upper slope of the Timor Sea. These sections were interpreted in terms of the stratigraphical section penetrated in Ashmore Reef No....

From north to south, the sedimentary basins of Western Australia change from broad platforms of wholly marine strata that span the entire Phanerozoic (Bonaparte Gulf and Canning Basins) through the intermediate Carnarvon Basin to rifts of nonmarine Permian and Mesozoic strata (Perth Basin). These contrasts in age, facies, and structure reflect diff...

India and Australia are reassembled in Gondwanaland from stratigraphic evidence with their northern margins facing Tethys and their southern margins within the interior. A similar reconstruction of all Gondwanaland entails insignificant reorientation of constituent continents, and is consistent with a pattern of continental dispersal indicated by t...

New information from a deep offshore well at Ashmore Reef and from offshore seismic reflection surveys in the Timor Sea shows a total composite thickness of about 50,000 ft. (15,240 m) of Phanerozoic sediments in the Bonaparte Gulf Basin. The stratigraphic similarity between the Permian to early Middle Miocene sequences of the Carnarvon Basin, Ashm...

A newly developed, hierarchical, agglomerative computer programme using an information statistic for the classification of mixed data shows that the various facies of the well‐exposed Famennian reefal limestones of the Bonaparte Basin, northwest Australia, are characterised by distinctive assemblages of groups defined numerically by 30 petrographic...

The Devonian of Western and Central Australia consists of sedimentary rocks deposited in intracratonic basins. No igneous activity is known. Devonian rocks are scattered over more than one million square miles and fall into three divisions:5,000 to 10,000 feet of mainly Upper Devonian marine platform limestones and sandstones in the three western b...

A COMPILATION of recent aeromagnetic surveys in offshore north-western Australia1-4 (Fig. 1) reveals a furrow in the magnetic basement, which I propose to call the Cartier Furrow, after Cartier Island. The furrow is at least 1,250 km long, and 6 km deep, and is filled with sediment. It underlies the upper continental slope except where it crosses t...

The common geological history of the Phanerozoic Canning Basin and Bonaparte Gulf Basin of northwest Australia is indicated by their continuity offshore and by the similarity of contemporaneous deposits onshore. The region has a basement of older Precambrian plutonic and metamorphic rocks, and a superstructure of flat‐lying and locally deformed you...

The Sahul Shelf, located between northwestern Australia and the Timor Trough, consists of a central basin surrounded by broad, shallow rises. Superimposed on the regional relief is a system of banks, terraces, and channels. The flat tops of banks and terraces form parts of several regional, subhorizontal surfaces. The steplike topography closely re...