Authors / CoAuthors
Mantle, D.J.
Abstract
The western margin of Australia comprises a number of frontier sedimentary basins that are largely under-explored and relatively poorly understood. As part of the Federal Government's Offshore Energy Security Program, Geoscience Australia undertook seismic and marine reconnaissance surveys across the region in late 2008-early 2009. Targeted dredge and video-grab sampling in the canyons incising the continental slope successfully recovered sedimentary rocks from the North Perth Basin, Cuvier Margin and Wallaby Plateau, thus providing significant new insights into the geological history and palaeogeography of the region. The Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous was a period of major tectonism along this margin as Jurassic rifting was followed by the final break-up of Greater India from Australia in the Valanginian. Subsequent thermal subsidence and continental margin flexure led to the deposition of Cretaceous to Recent sediments. The successful recovery of a rich palyniferous succession of Early Cretaceous siliciclastics represents the first biostratigraphic data for much of the region, as vast tracks of this margin have no borehole data and are true 'frontier' regions. The new palynological data shows a clear progression from pre-rift (Berriasian) terrestrial deposition through syn-rift to early post-rift (Valanginian-early Hauterivian) restricted marine sequences and finally a succession of inner to outer shelfal environments in the late post-rift phase (mid Hauterivian-early Albian). Abstract continues (does not fit within this field)
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nonGeographicDataset
eCat Id
70860
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Cnr Jerrabomberra Ave and Hindmarsh Dr GPO Box 378
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Keywords
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- External Publication
- ( Theme )
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- stratigraphy
- ( Theme )
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- palaeoclimatology
- Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)
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- Earth Sciences
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- Published_Internal
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2010-01-01T00:00:00
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