The Wattie Group of the Birrindudu Basin, northern Australia: a witness to the denudation of the Nuna-forming Isan/Chewings Orogeny
Files
(Research outputs)
Date
2024
Authors
Khanna, A.
Blades, M.L.
Collins, A.S.
Editors
Advisors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Type:
Journal article
Citation
Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, 2024; 1-18
Statement of Responsibility
A. Khanna, M. L. Blades and A. S. Collins
Conference Name
Abstract
The Proterozoic Birrindudu Basin lacks a robust chronostratigraphic framework and remains one of the least explored basins in the Northern Territory, Australia. It shares lithological and chronological similarities with the McArthur Basin and the Tomkinson Province, which together form the ‘greater McArthur Basin’. The sedimentary successions of these basins have been divided into five basin-scale, non-genetic depositional packages—the Redbank, Goyder, Glyde, Favenc and Wilton packages. Of these, the Favenc Package is among the least studied. The Wattie Group in the Birrindudu Basin is interpreted as part of the Favenc Package based on geophysical and sedimentological correlations. New LA-ICP-MS detrital zircon U–Pb data provide new constraints on the age and provenance of the Wattie Group and establish relationships with the other Favenc Package sequences of the greater McArthur Basin. Our new data, combined with published data, yield maximum depositional ages for the formations of the Wattie Group, from oldest to youngest: the Wickham Formation (1623±24Ma), the Burtawurta Formation (1591±70Ma), the Hughie Sandstone (1585±28Ma), the Neave Formation (1611±18Ma), the Gibbie Formation (1705±55Ma) and the Seale Sandstone (1550±24Ma). The detrital zircon age distribution suggests that the Wattie Group primarily received detritus from south and southeastern regions, which we link to denudation and erosion of a southern orogen during the early Mesoproterozoic. A subtle northward shift in sediment source is apparent in stratigraphically younger units. This age-provenance shift is matched with a similar stratigraphic change in petrography, which we interpret as near-complete denudation of southern orogenic topography and a return to sediment sourced from proximal northern sources. Tectonically, we interpret that the Wattie Group represents erosion of topography caused by the Isan/Chewings Orogeny during the last major Nuna amalgamation.
School/Discipline
Dissertation Note
Provenance
Description
OnlinePubl
Access Status
Rights
© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.