Australia: The Land Where Time Began

A biography of the Australian continent 

This basin is an intracratonic sag basin, initiated by renewed along the Palmerville Fault. Initial fluvial sedimentation of the Dalrymple Sandstone deposited over a rugged erosional surface. The upper parts of that formation were deposited in delta-plain to marginal marine environments. The deposition of the shallow marine Rolling Downs Group resulted from rapid subsidence during the Aptian. Late Cretaceous uplift and erosion terminated deposition in the basin. Thin fluvial sediments of the Kalpower Basin, deposited during the Cainozoic, overlie the sediments of the Laura Basin.

Situated in north-east Queensland, this basin covers an area of 18,000 km² on land and 16,000 km² offshore. It is composed of about 2,000 m thick deposits of Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous sediments. Beneath these layers are up to 10,000 m of Permian sediments of the Lakefield Basin. It is bounded on the west by the Coen Inlier, to the south by the Hodgkinson Province and Yambo Inlier and to the north and east offshore by the Queensland Basin and undefined continental shelf basement.

Sources & Further reading

Veevers, J.J. (ed.), 2000, Billion-year earth history of Australia and neighbours in Gondwanaland, GEMOC Press Sydney