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DYNAMICS OF PLATE INTERIORS, GEODYNAMICS SERIES, VOL. 1, PAGES 73–80, 1980

Basins of the Australian Craton and Margin

J. J. Veevers

School of Earth Sciences, Macquarie University, North Ryde, NSW, Australia

Abstract

The history of modern sedimentary basins of Australia is related to events that take place at present or past plate boundaries: the foredeep between the Australian mainland and New Guinea is bounded by uplift of the New Guinea Highlands along a convergent collisional plate boundary: the internal basins of the Lake Eyre and Murray River regions derive their sediment from the eastern and southeastern margins that were uplifted during plate divergence in the Late Mesozoic and Early Cenozoic; and the peripheral basins of the western, southern and eastern margins lie across collapsed arches that were split by plate divergence in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic. Similar patterns in the ancient basins of Australia can be related to similar causes. A notable departure from global sea level is found in Australia during the middle Cretaceous (~100 Ma ago), when an epeiric sea covered much of Australia at the same time as rapid convergence took place along the eastern margin; the sea retreated in the Late Cretaceous, at a time of decayed local convergence, but at the same time as global sea level reached a maximum. Both subsidence and the succeeding uplift of the interior are thus due to convergence and its decay along the adjacent margin. Other similar events in older sedimentary basins are traceable to effects at plate boundaries.

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Citation: Veevers, J. J., (1980), Basins of the Australian Craton and Margin, in Dynamics of Plate Interiors, Geodyn. Ser., vol. 1, edited by A. W. Bally et al., pp. 73-80, AGU, Washington, D. C.

Copyright 1980 by the American Geophysical Union.