Australia: The Land Where Time Began

A biography of the Australian continent 

Leigh Creek Coal Measures     See Triassic Australia

Situated in the Flinders Ranges in northeast South Australia the Leigh Creek Coal Measures is one of the most notable units for the fossil record of the Australian Late Triassic. The deposit is about 1,000 m deep and is comprised of coal seams 10-20 m thick interbedded with laminated siltstones. It was laid down in 5 intramontane basins of Triassic age that developed as a result of localised subsidence and faulting. The Telford basin is the largest of these basins.

Kear & Hamilton-Bruce suggest the deposit was laid down in an environment that was predominantly lacustrine with peat swamps that received episodic influxes from fluvial systems in the later stages of basin infill. Based on plant macrofossil and microfossil evidence it is believed the Leigh Creek Coal Measures are probably of Carnian-Norian age.

Sources & Further reading

1. Kear, B.P. & Hamilton-Bruce, R.J., 2011, Dinosaurs in Australia, Mesozoic life from the southern continent, CSIRO Publishing.