Western Australia: Phanerozoic geology and mineral resources

Phanerozoic rocks in onshore Western Australia are primarily sedimentary. Volcanic and intrusive rocks are known from only a few areas and are mostly related to continental breakup along the northwest and western margins. The age and degree of faulting varies from basin to basin, depending on tectonic setting and period of principal activity as a depocentre, but most rocks are flat-lying to gently folded. The Southern Bonaparte, Southern Carnarvon, Canning, and Gunbarrel Basins are dominantly Palaeozoic depocentres. The Canning Basin was the dominant Ordovician depocentre, and the Southern Carnarvon Basin the dominant Permian depocentre. The Perth Basin is a polycyclic basin that was active from the upper Palaeozoic onwards, but is primarily Mesozoic. The Bremer and Eucla Basins were initiated in the Mesozoic in small local depocentres, but contain more extensive, thicker Cainozoic deposits. The age of initiation and the age of the thickest infill in each basin reflects the progressive separation of Western Australia from parts of Gondwana. In addition, transported and residual regolith blankets most of the Precambrian cratons, basins and orogenic belts. Mineralisation in Phanerozoic rocks is primarily strata-bound. Mississippi Valley-type base metals are present in Ordovician, Devonian, and Carboniferous rocks and are commonly associated with extensional faulting and evaporite-carbonate hosts. Coal swamps were important in the Permian immediately after the Gondwana glaciation and in Jurassic fluviodeltaic complexes. Mineral sands are associated with Cainozoic strandlines and associated coastal settings, but the concentration into potential economic accumulations is only partly assessed with respect to Mesozoic sediments. Significant thicknesses of evaporites (mainly halite with lesser anhydrite) are present in Ordovician and Silurian rocks, but are overshadowed by major gypsum and halite resources in Cainozoic barred marine embayments. Diamonds are associated with lamproitic intrusives of Miocene age in the Canning Basin, but have not been extracted from Phanerozoic rocks, except near Argyle, where Cainozoic gravel placers derived from the Argyle pipe are currently mined. Iron ore is mined from pisolitic channel iron deposits in Eocene palaeo drainages in the Pilbara. Various residual weathering, lateritisation and evaporation processes have concentrated significant accumulations of bauxite, uranium, and a number of industrial minerals within Cainozoic regolith.

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Identification info

Date (Publication)
1998-01-01T00:00:00
Citation identifier
Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/81518

Cited responsible party
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Publisher

Australian Geological Survey Organisation

 Canberra
Author

Hocking, R.M.

 1
Author

Preston, W.A.

 2
Name

AGSO Journal of Australian Geology and Geophysics

Issue identification

17:3:245-260

Point of contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Custodian

Corp
Owner

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Custodian

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

 Voice
Topic category
  • Geoscientific information

Extent

N
S
E
W


Maintenance and update frequency
Unknown

Resource format

Title

Product data repository: Various Formats

Website

Data Store directory containing the digital product files

Data Store directory containing one or more files, possibly in a variety of formats, accessible to Geoscience Australia staff only for internal purposes

Keywords

  • GA Publication

  • Journal

Theme

  • marine

Keywords

  • WA

Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)

  • Earth Sciences

Keywords

  • Published_External

Resource constraints

Title

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence

Alternate title

CC-BY

Edition

4.0

Website

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

Access constraints
License
Use constraints
License

Resource constraints

Title

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem

Edition date
2018-11-01T00:00:00
Website

https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Classification
Unclassified
Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8

Distribution Information

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Distributor

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

 Voice
OnLine resource

Journal article (pdf)

Journal article (pdf)

Distribution format

  • pdf

Resource lineage

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Unknown

Hierarchy level
Non geographic dataset
Other

GA Publication

Description

Source data not available.

Metadata constraints

Title

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem

Edition date
2018-11-01T00:00:00
Website

https://www.protectivesecurity.gov.au/Pages/default.aspx

Classification
Unclassified

Metadata

Metadata identifier
urn:uuid/fae9173a-71cb-71e4-e044-00144fdd4fa6

Title

GeoNetwork UUID

Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8
Contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Point of contact

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

 Voice

Type of resource

Resource scope
Document
Name

AGSO BMR Journal

Alternative metadata reference

Title

Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with

uuid

Citation identifier
eCatId/81518

Metadata linkage

https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/fae9173a-71cb-71e4-e044-00144fdd4fa6

Date info (Revision)
2018-04-20T06:06:59
Date info (Creation)
2014-06-03T00:00:00

Metadata standard

Title

AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115-1:2014

Metadata standard

Title

ISO 19115-3

Title

Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014

Edition

Version 2.0, September 2018

Citation identifier
https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551

 
 

Spatial extent

N
S
E
W


Keywords

marine

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