Wolfgang Preiss

Geological Survey of South Australia | PIRSA · Department of State Development

In this study, we provide 40Ar / 39Ar geochronology data from a suite of variably deformed rocks from a region of low-grade metamorphism within the Cambro–Ordovician Delamerian Orogen, South Australia. Low-grade metamorphic rocks such as these can contain both detrital minerals and minerals newly grown or partly recrystallised during diagenesis and...

The glaciogenic nature of the Yudnamutana Subgroup was first recognised over a century ago, and their global significance was recognised shortly after, eventually culminating with the pan global Sturtian glaciation and Snowball Earth theory. Much debate on the origin and timing of these rocks, locally and globally, has ensued in the years since. A...

Low metamorphic grade rocks contain both detrital minerals and minerals newly grown or partly recrystallised during diagenesis and metamorphism. However, rocks such as these typically yield complex 40Ar/39Ar age spectra that can be difficult to interpret. In this study, we have analysed a suite of variably deformed rocks from a region of low metamo...

A series of linear to arcuate fault scarps separate the Mount Lofty Ranges from the Cenozoic St Vincent and Murray basins of South Australia. Their tectonic, sedimentary and geomorphic evolution is traced from the oldest rock record through to present-day seismicity. The scarps are the latest manifestation of repeated compressive reactivation of an...

Ten glacially related megaclasts, unique perhaps from a global perspective, have been identified in the MacDonald Corridor. Included are perhaps the largest known glacially-related basement-derived megaclasts, the Bimbowrie Megaclast measuring 1.25 km in exposed width. The MacDonald Corridor is the most outward of four half-grabens to the east of t...

A central prediction of the Snowball Earth hypothesis is that glacial onset should be synchronous at low latitudes, and its termination should be rapid and synchronous globally. Synchronous onset of the Sturtian (ca. 716 to ca. 660 Ma) has been robustly shown on multiple continents through the application of high precision U-Pb zircon dating. Succe...

The most successful chronostratigraphic correlation methods enlist multiple proxies such as biostratigraphy and chemostratigraphy to constrain the timing of globally important bio- and geo-events. Here we present the first regional, high-resolution shelly fossil biostratigraphy integrated with δ¹³C chemostratigraphy (and corresponding δ¹⁸O data) fr...

Integrated multi-proxy data is a requirement of the International Subcommission on Stratigraphic Classification (ISSC) for development and ratification of chronostratigraphic boundaries, particularly the integration of biostratigraphic and chemostratigraphic data. Global correlation of lower Cambrian strata has been notoriously difficult, mainly du...

Is Southern Australia bent? Recognition of a contiguous Palaeoproterozoicmagmatic arc along the western margin of the Mawson Continent

Migmatites are heterogeneous, medium- to high-grade metamorphic rocks with at least one component formed by partial melting. As migmatites form under P-T conditions common in the middle and lower crust, they are widespread and likely to be encountered in the field. They are complex rocks that can be confusing, and the present paper provides a backg...

Peer reviewed (DMITRE and externally)

Abstract: Deposits of the late Cryogenian Elatina glaciation constitute the Yerelina Subgroup in the Adelaide Geosyncline region, South Australia. They have a maximum thickness of c. 1500 m, cover 200 000 km2, and include the following facies: basal boulder diamictite with penetrative glaciotectonites affecting preglacial beds; widespread massive a...

Abstract: Deposits of the late Cryogenian Elatina glaciation constitute the Yerelina Subgroup in the Adelaide Geosyncline region, South Australia. They have a maximum thickness of c. 1500 m, cover 200 000 km2, and include the following facies: basal boulder diamictite with penetrative glaciotectonites affecting preglacial beds; widespread massive a...

The Onshore Energy Security Program—funded by the Australian Government and conducted by Geoscience Australia—has acquired deep seismic reflection data in conjunction with state and territory geological surveys, across several frontier sedimentary basins to stimulate petroleum exploration in onshore Australia. Here, we present data from two seismic...

The Adelaide Basin in Australia is a complex of late Neoproterozoic to Early Cambrian rift and sag basins which was inverted during the Cambro–Ordovician Delamerian Orogeny. The deposition of evaporitic sediments during the earliest stage of basin development in the late Neoproterozoic (Willouran age) played a major role in the subsequent tectonic...

In 2008, as part of its Onshore Energy Security Program, Geoscience Australia, in conjunction with AuScope, Primary Industries and Resources South Australia (PIRSA) and the Northern Territory Geological Survey, acquired 634 km of vibroseis-source, deep seismic reflection data and gravity data along a single traverse from about 25 km southeast of Er...

The ∼1720–1640 Ma Willyama Supergroup was deposited in an epi-continental rift basin accompanied by felsic and mafic magmatism, and hosts the largest known Pb–Zn–Ag accumulation at Broken Hill. The Supergroup occupies the southern portion of the Curnamona Province, a largely buried ∼50,000 km2 crustal block, possibly the southernmost part of the Ea...

The late Cryogenian Elatina glaciation in South Australia, of Marinoan age, is named after the Elatina Formation of the glaciogenic Yerelina Subgroup, which covers ∼200,000 km2 in the Adelaide Geosyncline and on the cratonic Stuart Shelf and is up to ∼1500 m thick. The Elatina glaciation is marked by numerous facies that are like those of Phanerozo...

Active intraplate seismicity has often been related to either anomalously high heat flow within the crust or pre- existing zones of weakness. Located in the central part of the Australian plate, more than 1000 km from the nearest active plate-boundary, the South Australian Craton has a long history of intraplate deformation from the Neoproterozoic...

The integrated in situ microanalysis of Pb and Hf isotopic compositions of zircon (TerraneChron® methodology) has been applied to detrital zircons from locally derived stream sediments in the South Para River, which samples the Houghton Inlier, South Australia. The zircons record two major events: an igneous event at 1718±8 Ma and a metamorphic eve...

The 300-Mt Broken Hill Pb-Zn-Ag orebody is in the Broken Hill Domain, which, together with the contiguous Olary Domain, constitutes the southern part of the Curnamona province of eastern Australia. The Curnamona province is dominated by medium- to high-grade metamorphic rocks of the Paleoproterozoic Willyama Supergroup and is the focus of explorati...

C. H. H. Connor, W. V. Pries, R. W. Page, B. P. J. Stevens, I. R. Plimer and P. M. Ashley write: Gibson & Nutman (2004) postulate that the Willyama Supergroup in the southern Curnamona Province contains a 1690–1670 Ma metamorphic core complex, and imply that this is relevant to the genesis of the Broken Hill Pb–Zn–Ag deposit. We contend that this i...

The Adelaide Geosyncline is a deeply subsident Neoproterozoic to Middle Cambrian basin complex in South Australia with a record of at least five major successive rift cycles. Each rift system has its own locus and orientation. Although the rift events led to the breakup of the Neoproterozoic supercontinent Rodinia of which, according to the SWEAT h...

Seismic reflection surveys suggest that the Gulf St Vincent area of the Stansbury Basin, South Australia is filled with four pre‐Permian sedimentary packages. The upper three packages (S0‐S2) are interpreted as Early Palaeozoic rocks that are considered to be underlain by a Neoproterozoic package. The Early Palaeozoic packages are up to 6000 m thic...

Detrital-zircon age spectra have been determined for sedimentary rocks from the Delamerian orogen, southern Australia. In Neoproterozoic sedimentary rocks, patterns progressively change from Mesoproterozoic- to Neoproterozoic-dominated detritus and there are few zircons that are close to the depositional age. The base of the Cambrian Kanmantoo Grou...

The Proterozoic Curnamona Province extends across northeastern South Australia and western New South Wales, with exposures in the Willyama, Mount Painter and Mount Babbage Inliers, but much of it is obscured by younger sedimentary cover. Curnamona Province rocks comprise a late Palaeoproterozoic metasedimentary and metavolcanic succession (Willyama...

The Early to Middle Cambrian Stansbury Basin preserves a palaeogeographic zonation, from shallow shelf carbonates in the west (Spencer and Ardossan Shelves) through extensional siliciclastic rift facies (Kanmantoo Trough) and volcanogenically influenced back-arc basin environments (Murray Basin basement). Sedimentation occurred from about 540 Ma to...

Seismic reflection surveys suggest that the Gulf St Vincent area of the Stansbury Basin (South Australia) contains at least three pre-Permian sedimentary packages. The upper two packages may reflect sedimentation within a foreland basin to the early Palaeozoic Delamerian Orogen, which is exposed to the east on Fleurieu Peninsula. The packages, whic...

The Neoproterozoic Adelaidean System and overlying Cambrian rocks are a thick succession of terrestrial and shallow-marine sediments that were deposited on older continental crust near the eastern edge of the exposed Precambrian rocks in Australia. The Adelaidean System records four major tectonic regimes: (1) early Neoproterozoix formation of an e...

The Adelaide Geosyncline contains an extremely thick, folded late Proterozoic to middle Cambrian sequence deposited initially in rifted troughs and later in broad zones of regional subsidence. These are partly analogous to the Mesozoic-Cainozoic system of basins associated with the southern continental margin of Australia, but relationship to an oc...

This chapter focuses on the geology of Gawler Province and the Stuart Shelf and Adelaide Geosyncline of South Australia. The principal outcrop of the Gawler Province is in the Gawler orogenic domain. Although the area of basement rock is extensive, it is generally of low relief and commonly blanketed by a thin superficial cover. Thus the geology is...

Adelaidean (late Proterozoic) time is represented by the Precambrian portion of the thick sequence in the Adelaide geosyncline (its stratotype basin) in South Australia. Comparable Adelaidean sedimentation, including the deposition of glaciogenic sediments, is recorded in other intracratonic and epicratonic basins extending northwards across Austra...

Adelaidean (late Precambrian) sequences in the Kimberley Region, Western Australia, contain undisputed evidence of glaciation. In the East and West Kimberleys, only a single major glacial epoch is represented, but in the Mount Ramsay area, there are upper and lower glaciogenic deposits. In the past, the lower of these (Landrigan Tillite) has been c...

New forms of late Precambrian stromatolites are described from the Amadeus and Georgian Basins and additional information is given on Minjaria pontifera Walter from the Bitter Springs Formation. Tesca stewartii gr. et f. nov. is described from the Boord Formation, Elleria minuta gr. et f. nov. from the Pioneer Sandstone, and Tungussia julia f. nov....

The morphology of stromatolites is controlled partly by the biological composition of algal mats and partly by the direct action of environmental factors. Both trapping of detrital grains and precipitation of carbonate in algal mats are important processes in stromatolite formation. Precambrian stromatolites were probably not subject to the environ...

This chapter discusses the basic field and laboratory methods for the study of stromatolites. Field observations are an essential part of all stromatolite studies, not only for geological mapping, environmental interpretation and determination of stratigraphic facings, but also for detailed taxonomic study. The field geologist will be mainly concer...

Precambrian geologists have for many years entertained the possibility of using palaeontology for interregional and intercontinental correlations. Preliminary indications from the other continents, notably Australia and North Africa, indicate that many of the Russian taxa have widespread, perhaps global distribution. The determination of their time...

Despite the palaeoecological emphasis of recent stromatolite research outside the USSR, controversy still exists regarding the environmental restriction of these organosedimentary structures and some analogies with modern occurrences have been maintained too rigidly. Palaeo‐environments should be determined where possible by a combination of all bi...

The stratigraphic distribution in Australian Precambrian rocks of columnar stromatolites, organosedimentary structures formed by blue-green algae, has been investigated. Their morphology is being studied according to methods developed in Russia. The discovery of successive different assemblages supports not only regional but also intercontinental s...