Neoproterozoic (Cryogenian) stromatolites from the Wolfe Basin,east Kimberley,Western Australia: Correlation with the Centralian Superbasin

Linella avis, an early to middle Neoproterozoic (Tonian to Cryogenian) stromatolite, occurs in the Eliot Range Dolomite, part of the Ruby Plains Group in the Wolfe Basin, east Kimberley. Previously, this dolomite was assigned to the Mesoproterozoic Bungle Bungle Dolomite in the Osmond Basin, which contains a different suite of stromatolites. Linella avis, which also occurs in the Neoproterozoic Bitter Springs Formation of the Amadeus Basin, central Australia, appears to be restricted to rocks aged around 850 to 800 Ma. The presence of L. avis indicates that the Ruby Plains Group is a probable correlative of the Heavitree Quartzite and Bitter Springs Formation, and is probably much younger than the Bungle Bungle Dolomite. If the correlation suggested here is correct, the Wolfe Basin, together with the Amadeus and Ngalia Basins, formed part of the Centralian Superbasin.     

Hypervelocity impact craters in ammonia rich ice

Research on the impact cratering process on icy bodies has been largely based on the most abundant ice, water. However little is known about the influence of other relatively abundant ices such as ammonia. Accordingly, data are presented studying the influence on cratering in ammonia rich ice using spherical 1 mm diameter stainless steel projectiles at velocities of 4.8±0.5 km s⁻¹. The ice target composition ranged from pure water ice, to solutions containing 50% ammonia and 50% water by weight. Results for crater depth, diameter, volume and depth/diameter ratio are given. The results showed that the presence of ammonia in the ice had a very strong influence on crater diameter and morphology. It was found that with only a 10% concentration of ammonia, crater diameter significantly decreased, and then at greater concentrations became independent of ammonia content. Crater depth was independent of the presence of ammonia in the ice, and the crater volume appeared to decrease as ammonia concentration increased. Between ammonia concentrations of 10 and 20% crater morphology visibly changed from wide shallow craters with a deeper central pit to craters with a smoothly increasing depth from the crater rim to centre. Thus, a small amount of ammonia within a water ice surface may have a major effect on crater morphology.     

TOPOGRAPHIC SHADING AND GEOGRAPHICAL PATTERNS OF DIRECT SOLAR RADIATION IN MOUNTAINOUS REGIONS*

Topographic shading curtails the period and complicates the geographic patterns of insolation in mountainous areas. Maps derived from oblique aerial photographs of shadow lines cast by the irregular, mountainous east horizon in Provo, Utah are used as a case study to illustrate an alternative to existing techniques of solar radiation data collection. For study areas of several hundred square kilometers, this method may be superior in resolution and at the same time more error free and economically feasible than other methods. Measurement of solar inputs received at sample stations scattered through the mapped area show that the phenomenon of topographically delayed sunrise has a distinct effect on daily totals of radiation in the manner suggested by the maps.     

Vines 1 revisited: are older Neoproterozoic glacial deposits preserved in Western Australia?

The stratigraphy in Vines 1, a 2017.5 m-deep cored stratigraphic hole drilled by the Geological Survey of Western Australia in 2001 near the Western Australian – South Australian border, has been reinterpreted with implications for the Neoproterozoic to Cambrian geological history of the Officer Basin. A previous interpretation considered the intersected succession as a conformable stratigraphic package, the Vines Formation. An assemblage of palynomorphs, found throughout the hole and previously used to infer an age of no older than earliest Cambrian, is now thought to consist of contaminants. An older assemblage, which is considered to be reworked and inherited from underlying rocks, provides a new maximum age constraint of mid-Neoproterozoic. Based on sedimentological interpretations and comparisons with other drillholes in the western Officer Basin, and the succession in the eastern Officer Basin, the Vines 1 succession is reinterpreted as four discrete sedimentary packages, the Pirrilyungka (new name), Wahlgu, Lungkarta and Vines (redefined) Formations, in ascending order. The Pirrilyungka and Wahlgu Formations include glacigenic sediments and may correlate with similar glacial successions in Supersequences 2 and 3 (mid to late Cryogenian) of the Centralian Superbasin, and the Sturt Tillite and Elatina Formation and their equivalents in the Adelaide Rift Complex of South Australia, respectively. The eolian Lungkarta Formation and fluvial Vines Formation are considered, on regional evidence, to be most likely of Ediacaran to earliest Cambrian age.     

Stratigraphy of the Neoproterozoic to early Palaeozoic Savory Basin,Western Australia,and correlation with the Amadeus and Officer Basins

The Savory Basin in central Western Australia was recognized in the mid‐1980s during regional mapping of very poorly exposed Proterozoic rocks previously assigned to the Bangemall Basin. All of the sedimentary rock units in the Savory Basin have been included in the Savory Group, which unconformably overlies the Mesoproterozoic Yeneena and Bangemall Groups. Correlation with adjacent basins is impeded by poor outcrop and the lack of subsurface information. Possible correlations have been investigated with the much better known Amadeus Basin to the east, and with the Officer Basin. Two correlations now clarify the age and relationships of the Savory Group. First, the Skates Hills Formation contains distinctive stromatolites previously recorded from the Bitter Springs Formation of the Amadeus Basin. In addition, the Skates Hills and Bitter Springs Formations have many lithological features in common. This correlation is strengthened by comparison with surface and subsurface units in the northern Officer Basin. Second, the intergrading sandstone‐diamictite of the Boondawari Formation is very similar to the intergrading Pioneer Sandstone‐Olympic Formation of the Amadeus Basin, and the overlying siltstone closely resembles the Pertatataka Formation and its correlative the Winnall beds. The stromatolitic and oolitic carbonates at the top of the Boondawari Formation are broadly comparable with those of the Julie Formation (which grades down into the Pertatataka Formation). Support for this set of correlations comes from carbon isotope chemostratigraphy. The stromatolites include two new forms described herein, Eleonora boondawarica and Acaciella savoryensis, together with a third form too poorly preserved to be formally defined. The age of the upper sandstones is unknown. The McFadden Formation seems to have its provenance in the Paterson Orogen. The southeastern extension of this orogen is the Musgrave Block, where compression followed by uplift at about 560–530 Ma (Peterman Ranges Orogeny) led to the formation of large amounts of conglomerate (Mt Currie Conglomerate) and sandstone (Arumbera Sandstone). If tectonic events in the Paterson Orogen were contemporaneous with those in the Musgrave Block, the McFadden Formation would correlate with the Arumbera Sandstone.     

Environmental study of the disposal of red mud waste

Alkaline red mud is a waste product of extracting alumina from bauxite and it is produced in large quantities. This report examines the ecological consequences of red mud waste during the first 18 months of operation of a refinery in the Northern Territory of Australia.     

New records of Ediacaran Acraman ejecta in drillholes from the Stuart Shelf and Officer Basin,South Australia

Abstract— New occurrences of the Acraman impact ejecta layer were recently discovered in two South Australian drillholes, SCYW‐79 1a (Stuart Shelf) and Munta 1 (Officer Basin) using lithostratigraphy, acritarch biostratigraphy, carbon isotope stratigraphy, and biomarker anomalies to predict the stratigraphic position. The ejecta layer is conspicuous because it consists of pink, sandsized, angular fragments of volcanic rock distributed along the bedding plane surface of green marine siltstone. In SCYW‐79 1a it forms a layer 5 mm thick; in Munta 1 the ejecta layer is thin and discontinuous because of its distance (?550 km) from the impact structure. Palynological, biomarker, and carbon isotope anomalies can now be shown to coincide with the ejecta layer in SCYW‐79 1a and Munta 1 suggesting the Acraman impact event may have had far reaching influences on the rapidly evolving Ediacaran biological and geochemical cycles.     

Aspects of Proterozoic stromatolite biostratigraphy in Western Australia

Stromatolites are abundant at many horizons in the Proterozoic of Western Australia. Recent advances in knowledge of Proterozoic stratigraphy of the state have provided a more detailed framework for interpreting the stromatolite data than has been available previously. In the 1.7 Ga Earaheedy Group of the Nabberu Basin a characteristic stromatolite assemblage occurs, and within the basin a biostratigraphic succession can be recognized. The assemblage contains several new forms which belong to new groups. The need to erect new groups for these early Proterozoic stromatolites is in agreement with recent studies in Canada, northern Europe and South Africa, and suggests that the problem of ‘younger’ or late Proterozoic stromatolite groups in early Proterozoic rocks mentioned by previous workers is a result of a lack of rigour in defining taxa. Examination of type material is necessary to determine how closely the Earaheedy forms resemble those described from these other regions.In Western Australia some stromatolite forms have a restricted vertical range and similar taxa occur in beds of approximately the same age in widely-separated areas: e.g. Kimberley Group and Earaheedy Group; Scorpion Group and Limbunya, Birrindudu, McArthur, Mt. Rigg and Mt. Albert Groups and Bungle Bungle Dolomite; Tolmer and Bullita Groups; Moora and Bangemall Groups; Kai Ki Beds, Louisa Downs, Mount House and Albert Edward Groups.Stromatolite diversity shows a decline in the number of taxa at about 1.1. Ga in the Bangemall Group. More data are required to determine whether this decline is universal or specific to the Bangemall Group. This study indicates that a stromatolite biostratigraphy for Western Australia is feasible and is consistent with data from other parts of Australia. Thus emphasis on correlation should be placed on the stromatolite form rather than the group, and intercontinental correlations should be attempted only when local biostratigraphic schemes have been firmly established.     

Velocity Scaling of Impact Craters in Water Ice over the Range 1 to 7.3 km s

The impact cratering behavior of polycrystalline ice at a temperature of 259±3 K has been investigated by 16 impacts with 1-mm aluminum 2017 alloy spheres (density 2790 kg m⁻³) over the velocity range 1 to 7.3 km s⁻¹ using a two-stage light-gas gun. Crater cross-sectional profiles and diameter, depth, and volume data are presented. It is found that there is no significant difference in power-law energy exponents for scaling of crater diameter and volume between these data and previous low-velocity (<1 km s⁻¹) ice impact data. Dimensionless pi group scaling was also found to scale the data in a way which can be readily combined with earlier lower velocity data and data at a lower ice temperature.     

Taxonomy and biogenicity of Archaean spheroidal microfossils (ca. 3.0 Ga) from the Mount Goldsworthy–Mount Grant area in the northeastern Pilbara Craton, Western Australia

Microstructures recently reported from an Archaean sedimentary succession (ca. 3.0 Ga) in the Mount Goldsworthy–Mount Grant area in the northeastern Pilbara Craton meet the criteria for compelling evidence of biogenicity [Sugitani, K., Grey, K., Allwood, A., Nagaoka, T., Mimura, K., Minami, M., Marshall, C.P., Van Kranendonk, M.J., Walter, M.R., 2007. Diverse microstructures from Archaean chert from the Mount Goldsworthy–Mount Grant area, Pilbara Craton, Western Australia: microfossils, dubiofossil, or pseudofossils. Precambrian Res. 158, 228–262]. The structures are morphologically diverse. Although they were tentatively classified into five major morphological types (thread-like, film-like, small (<15 μm) and large (>15 μm) spheroidal, and spindle-like), the possible taxonomic significance of these groups was not discussed. Building on our earlier analysis, we focus on the morphology of the larger spheroids, as well as presenting further evidence relating spindles and several bizarre forms, and attempt to group them taxonomically and adduce additional evidence for their biogenicity.Taphonomic features were identified in each of the various morphological groups, but the range of morphological diversity of the spheroids cannot be attributed solely to taphonomic alteration. Four subdivisions of spheroids are proposed: (1) simple single-walled spheroids, (2) thin-walled spheroids having a diffuse envelope, (3) thick-walled spheroids, and (4) spheroids having an extensively folded wall. Simple single-walled spheroids, 15–60 μm in diameter, with various wall textures but commonly lacking envelopes or appendages form the dominant subgroup. Other complex morphologies are present and include aligned or associated bodies of thin-walled spheroids with diffuse envelopes, and spindle-like structures containing inner spheroidal bodies. The degree of morphological complexity and associations between structures suggest the presence of reproductive phases. If correct, this implies that the early Earth (ca. 3.0 Ga) showed a higher level of biodiversity than is currently postulated.