A strontium isoscape of southwestern Australia

<div>Strontium isotopes (87Sr/86Sr) are useful in the earth sciences (e.g. recognising geological provinces, studying geological processes) as well in archaeological (e.g. informing on past human migrations), palaeontological/ecological (e.g. investigating extinct and extant taxa’s dietary range and migrations) and forensic (e.g. validating the origin of drinks and foodstuffs) sciences. Recently, Geoscience Australia and the University of Wollongong have teamed up to determine 87Sr/86Sr ratios in fluvial sediments selected mostly from the low-density National Geochemical Survey of Australia (NGSA; www.ga.gov.au/ngsa). The present study targeted the Yilgarn geological region in southwestern Australia. The samples were mostly taken from a depth of ~60-80 cm (Bottom Outlet Sediments, BOS) in floodplain deposits at or near the outlet of large catchments (drainage basins). A small number of surface (0-10 cm) samples (Top Outlet Sediments, TOS) were also included in the study. For all, a coarse grain-size fraction (<2 mm) was air-dried, sieved, milled then digested (hydrofluoric acid + nitric acid followed by aqua regia) to release total strontium. Overall, 107 NGSA BOS < 2 mm and 13 NGSA TOS < 2 mm were analysed for Sr isotopes. Given that there are ~10 % field duplicates in the NGSA, all those samples originate from within 97 NGSA catchments, which together cover 533 000 km2 of southwestern Australia. Preliminary results for the BOS samples demonstrate a wide range of strontium isotopic values (0.7152 < 87Sr/86Sr < 1.0909) over the survey area, reflecting a large diversity of source rock lithologies, geological processes and bedrock ages. Spatial distribution of 87Sr/86Sr shows coherent (multi-point anomalies and smooth gradients), large-scale (>100 km) patterns that appear to be consistent, in many places, with surface geology, regolith/soil type and/or nearby outcropping bedrock. For instance, catchments in the western and central Yilgarn dominated by felsic intrusive basement geology have radiogenic 87Sr/86Sr signatures in the floodplain sediments consistent with published whole-rock data. Similarly, unradiogenic signatures in sediments in the eastern Yilgarn are in agreement with published whole-rock data. Our results to-date indicate that incorporating soil/regolith strontium isotopes in regional, exploratory geoscience investigations can help identify basement rock types under (shallow) cover, constrain surface processes (e.g. weathering, dispersion), and, potentially, recognise components of mineral systems. Furthermore, the resulting strontium isoscape and model derived therefrom can also be utilised in archaeological, paleontological and ecological studies that aim to investigate past and modern animal (including humans) dietary habits and migrations.&nbsp; The new spatial dataset is publicly available through the Geoscience Australia portal https://portal.ga.gov.au/.</div>

Simple

Identification info

Date (Creation)
2024-06-05T08:00:00
Date (Publication)
2024-08-11T23:44:21
Citation identifier
Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/149755

Citation identifier
Digital Object Identifier/https://dx.doi.org/10.26186/149755

Cited responsible party
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Publisher

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

 Voice
Author

de Caritat, P.

 MEG Internal Contact
Author

Dosseto, A.

 External Contact
Author

Dux, F.

 External Contact
Purpose

Deliver strontium (Sr) isotopic data to EFTF stakeholders

Status
Completed
Point of contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Resource provider

Minerals, Energy and Groundwater Division

 External Contact
Point of contact

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

 Voice
Point of contact

Waltenberg, K.

 Internal Contact
Spatial representation type
Topic category
  • Geoscientific information

Extent

N
S
E
W


Maintenance and update frequency
As needed

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

Project

  • EFTF – Exploring for the Future

Project

  • National Database of Archived Samples

Project

  • Isotopic Atlas of Australia

Project

  • EFTF

Project

  • Australia’s Resources Framework

Keywords

  • Mineral exploration

Keywords

  • Sr isotopes

Keywords

  • regolith

theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf

  • Soil chemistry and soil carbon sequestration (excl. carbon sequestration science)

  • Isotope geochemistry

  • Exploration geochemistry

Keywords

  • Published_External

Resource constraints

Title

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence

Alternate title

CC-BY

Edition

4.0

Website

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Addressee
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
User

Any
Use constraints
License
Use constraints
Other restrictions
Other constraints

(c) Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia) 2024

Resource constraints

Title

Australian Government Security Classification System

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

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

Classification
Unclassified
Classification system

Australian Government Security Classification System

Associated resource

Association Type
Informed
Title

A strontium isoscape of inland southeastern Australia

Citation identifier
146397

Citation identifier
004c6972-4d53-4b8f-ba35-2d2469d644e9

Website

http://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/146397

Link to eCat metadata record landing page

Associated resource

Association Type
Was derived from
Title

National Geochemical Survey of Australia: The Geochemical Atlas of Australia

Citation identifier
71973

Citation identifier
a4a1ac2e-0a2c-653b-e044-00144fdd4fa6

Website

http://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/71973

Link to eCat metadata record landing page

Associated resource

Association Type
Informed
Title

A strontium isoscape of northern Australia

Citation identifier
147473

Citation identifier
f7259782-43fa-433f-8784-50098b233ec1

Website

http://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/147473

Link to eCat metadata record landing page

Language
English
Character encoding
UTF8

Distribution Information

Distributor contact
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details
Distributor

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

 Voice facsimile
OnLine resource

Download the Dataset (csv) [11.2 KB]

Download the Dataset (csv) [11.2 KB]

Distribution format

  • csv

    File decompression technique

    nil

OnLine resource

Download metdata description (csv) [2.6 KB]

Download metdata description (csv) [2.6 KB]

Distribution format

  • csv

    File decompression technique

    nil

Resource lineage

Statement

<b>Bibliographic references</b><br />CARITAT, P. de, DOSSETO, A. & DUX, F., 2022. A strontium isoscape of inland southeastern Australia, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 14, 4271-4286, <br /> https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-14-4271-2022<br /><br />CARITAT, P. de, DOSSETO, A. & DUX, F., 2022. A strontium isoscape of northern Australia, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 15, 1655-1673, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-1655-2023&nbsp; https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-15-1655-2023</div><div><br></div><div><b>Related to</b><br />CARITAT, P. de, DOSSETO, A. & DUX, F., 2022. A strontium isoscape of inland southeastern Australia. Geoscience Australia dataset, Canberra, Australia<br /> https://dx.doi.org/10.26186/146397<br /><br />CARITAT, P. de, DOSSETO, A. & DUX, F., 2022. A strontium isoscape of northern Australia. Geoscience Australia dataset, Canberra, Australia<br /> https://dx.doi.org/10.26186/147473</div>

Reference System Information

Reference system identifier
EPSG/GDA94 / geographic 2D (EPSG: 4283)

Metadata constraints

Title

Australian Government Security Classification System

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

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

Classification
Unclassified

Metadata

Metadata identifier
urn:uuid/5b26b7c1-974b-4493-9101-6bf55fd457c6

Title

GeoNetwork UUID

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

Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)

 Voice
Point of contact

Waltenberg, K.

 Internal Contact

Type of resource

Resource scope
Dataset

Alternative metadata reference

Title

Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with

uuid

Citation identifier
eCatId/149755

Metadata linkage

https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/5b26b7c1-974b-4493-9101-6bf55fd457c6

Metadata linkage

https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/accessDenied.jsp/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/5b26b7c1-974b-4493-9101-6bf55fd457c6

Metadata linkage

https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/eng/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/5b26b7c1-974b-4493-9101-6bf55fd457c6

Date info (Creation)
2024-08-08T05:54:05
Date info (Revision)
2024-08-08T05:54:05

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
http://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551

 
 

Spatial extent

N
S
E
W


Keywords

Australia’s Resources Framework EFTF EFTF – Exploring for the Future Isotopic Atlas of Australia National Database of Archived Samples
theme.ANZRC Fields of Research.rdf
Exploration geochemistry Isotope geochemistry Soil chemistry and soil carbon sequestration (excl. carbon sequestration science)

Provided by

Access to the portal

Associated resources

Not available