Heinson, G.Kay, B.Baker, D.Margiono, R.2025-07-172025-07-172025Scientific Reports, 2025; 15(1):22008-1-22008-152045-23222045-2322https://hdl.handle.net/2440/146070Central Australia preserves a record of micro-continent and craton accretion during assembly of the Paleoproterozoic Nuna supercontinent 2500−1600 Ma, followed by Mesoproterozoic magmatic and orogenic events that formed the Musgrave Province. The Petermann Orogeny (630−520 Ma) and Alice Springs Orogeny (450−300 Ma) resulted in north-south crustal shortening and Moho offsets up to 20 km that yield gravity variations of ~160 mGals. Three-dimensional inversion of 614 long-period (10–10000 s) AusLAMP MT and 36 geomagnetic depth sounding (GDS) sites spaced~55 km produced resistivity estimates to 250 km depth, covering 1500 km west-east, 1300 km north-south. From 0 to 5 km, resistivity maps the extent and thickness of Neoproterozoic Officer, Amadeus, Ngalia and Georgina Basins, and Mesozoic Eromanga basin. At all crustal depths the Arunta Province and northern Musgrave Province are resistive (>10000 Ω.m), bounded by lower crustal conductive zones (<10 Ω.m) to the north, east and south that align with suture zones associated with Paleoproterozoic accretion of ribbon continents. Lithospheric scale faults active in the Petermann Orogen (Woodroffe Thrust) and Alice Springs Orogen (Redbank Shear Zone) align with these low-resistivity zones, and we argue that graphite from carbon burial in Paleoproterozoic sediments reduces frictional strength and enable compressive deformation to localise strain.en© Crown 2025 . Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.Central AustraliaConductanceContinental accretionMagnetotelluricOrogenyResistivityJournal article10.1038/s41598-025-02830-1744226Heinson, G. [0000-0001-7106-0789]Kay, B. [0000-0002-9738-7277]Margiono, R. [0000-0001-7926-3599]