Tectonic geomorphology of Australia
The Australian continent is actively deforming in response to far-field stresses generated by plate boundary interactions and buoyancy forces associated with mantle dynamics. On the largest scale (several 103 km), the submergence of the northern continental shelf is driven by dynamic topography caused by mantle downwelling along the Indo-Pacific subduction system and accentuated by a regionally elevated geoid. The emergence of the southern shelf is attributed to the progressive movement of Australia away from a dynamic topography low. On the intermediate scale (several 102 km), low-amplitude (c. 100–200 m) long-wavelength (c. 100–300 km) topographic undulations are driven by (1) anomalous, smaller-scale upper mantle convection, and/or (2) lithospheric-scale buckling associated with plate boundary tectonic forcing. On the smallest scale (101 km), fault-related deformation driven by partitioning of far-field stresses has modified surface topography at rates of up to c. 170 m Ma-1, generated more than 30–50% of the contemporary topographic relief between some of Australia’s highlands and adjacent piedmonts, and exerted a first-order control on long-term (104–106 a) bedrock erosion. Although Australia is often regarded as tectonically and geomorphologically quiescent, Neogene to Recent tectonically induced landscape evolution has occurred across the continent, with geomorphological expressions ranging from mild to dramatic.
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Publication)
- 2010-01-01T00:00:00
- Citation identifier
- Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/69253
- Cited responsible party
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Author Quigley, M.
1 Author Clark, D.
2 Author Sandiford, M.
3
- Point of contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Point of contact Clark, D.
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- Geoscientific information
- Maintenance and update frequency
- Unknown
- Keywords
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External Publication
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- Theme
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earthquakes
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- Theme
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geodynamics
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- Theme
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geohazards
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- Theme
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geomorphology
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- Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)
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Earth Sciences
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- Keywords
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Published_Internal
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Resource constraints
- Title
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
- Alternate title
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CC-BY
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4.0
- Access constraints
- Restricted
- Use constraints
- License
Resource constraints
- Title
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Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Distribution Information
- Distributor contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Distributor Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice
- OnLine resource
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Link to article
Link to article
- Distribution format
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html
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Resource lineage
- Statement
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Not supplied
- Hierarchy level
- Non geographic dataset
- Other
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External Publication
- Description
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Source data not available.
Metadata constraints
- Title
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Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
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urn:uuid/a05f7892-ec96-7506-e044-00144fdd4fa6
- Title
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GeoNetwork UUID
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
- Contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice Point of contact Clark, D.
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Document
- Name
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External publication
Alternative metadata reference
- Title
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Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with
uuid
- Citation identifier
- eCatId/69253
- Date info (Revision)
- 2018-04-11T00:52:30
- Date info (Creation)
- 2009-06-30T00:00:00
Metadata standard
- Title
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AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-3
- Title
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Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014
- Edition
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Version 2.0, September 2018
- Citation identifier
- https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551