About This Item

Share This Item

The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

CSPG Special Publications

Abstract


Intl. Symposium of the Devonian system: Papers, Volume II, 1967
Pages 1335-1344
Faunal Provinces and Palaeogeography

Upper Devonian Sedimentological Provinces in Eastern Australia and their controlling factors

Keith A. W. Crook

Abstract

The Lambian, New England and Hodgkinson Sedimentological Provinces of the eastern Australian Upper Devonian-Lower Carboniferous are referable respectively to the deltaic wacke-arenite association and two variants of the intermediate graywacke association of Krumbein and Sloss. Comparison of the provinces in terms of the macroscopic geometry of their sequences, colour, mesoscopic and microscopic texture, depositional structures, arenite mineralogy and provenance, and clay mineralogy reveals that, by choosing suitable clusters from these parameters, any two of the three provinces can be grouped as being more similar to each other than to the third province.

Conventionally the Lambian Province would be interpreted as moderately to strongly negative, with a cratonic epeirogenic source, and the New England and Hodgkinson Provinces as strongly negative with extra-cratonic volcanic and orogenic sources. The data however permit an alternative interpretation, with the New England Province as the least negative, the Lambian next but with an intra-cratonic orogenic source, and the Hodgkinson as most negative, with a cratonic epeirogenic source.

In the absence of comprehensive studies of tectonism and sedimentation in contemporary settings, objective criteria for determining the validity both of these interpretations, and of tectonic-sedimentary interpretations generally, are lacking. Yet tectonism is a significant factor, together with climate, provenance, volcanism, depositional environment and geographic location, in determining the character of the three sedimentological provinces.


Pay-Per-View Purchase Options

The article is available through a document delivery service. Explain these Purchase Options.

Watermarked PDF Document: $14
Open PDF Document: $24