The Narooma Terrane offshore: a new model for the southeastern Lachlan Orogen using data from rocks dredged from the New South Wales continental slope

Eight dredges from the southern New South Wales continental slope sampled the offshore extension of the Lachlan Orogen. Two rock suites were recovered: (1) lower greenshist facies limestones, felsic volcanics, sandstones, mudstones and Moruya Suite granodiorite correlate with the onshore Silurian to mid-Devonian orogenic phase; and (2) a strongly deformed greenschist to lower amphibolite facies mafic volcanics, cherts, marbles, pelites and serpentinites correlate in part with the Cambro-Ordovician Wagonga Group of the Narooma Terrane. The mafic volcanic rocks have ocean island, tholeiitic and boninitic basalt affinities. The offshore distribution of ocean island basalt that correlates with medial Cambrian basalt breccias at Batemans Bay suggests a large seamount or seamount complex. The boninites, tholeiites and ultramafics could be part of a forearc-generated ophiolite. The Narooma Terrane basement is interpreted as the part of the bonititic arc postulated to have collided with Vandieland in late early Cambrian time. Mid-Cambrian rifting of the oceanward part of this arc remnant, generated the Albury–Bega Terrane oceanic basement exposed in the Howqua Valley in the west and Melville Point in the east. Overlying are upper–mid-Cambrian to lowermost Ordovician black shale and chert, Lower Ordovician to Gisbornian Adaminaby Group quartz turbidites and Gisbornian to lower Bolindian Bendoc Group black shales. Batemans Bay exposures are reinterpreted as a dismembered basin margin succession onlapping the west-facing attenuated flank of the Narooma Terrane. The Narooma Cambro-Ordovician cherts and mudstones were initially deposited outboard on the more elevated seamount flank elevated above the clastic-filled basin to the west. Benambran deformation commenced in latest Ordovician time uplifting the outer Narooma Terrane, shedding debris from the seamount and its flanks, culminating in allochthonous displacement of chert masses to the basin's eastern margin to Narooma, and emplacing them as a succession of thrust sheets. Contemporaneously, silt and mud of the Bogolo Formation, deposited from the west, were mixed with olistostomal basalt and chert debris from the east. Early Silurian westward tectonic transport of the Narooma Terrane ruptured the Albury-Bega basin floor at Batemans Bay, thrusting it and its sedimentary cover over its eastern margin as a series of thrusts each floored by melange (mapped Bogolo Formation), derived from the slope debris and its overpressured sedimentary cover. Offshore, the metamorphosed Benambran phase rocks are unconformably overlain by Tabberabberan cycle sediments and volcanics intruded by granodiorite. Our interpretation of the boundary between the Albury-Bega and Narooma terranes as a thrusted passive margin accumulation is incompatible with models of a Narooma Accretionary Complex formed by the subduction of the Paleopacific Plate.     

Late Ordovician stratigraphy,zircon provenance and tectonics,Lachlan Fold Belt,southeastern Australia

Ordovician quartz turbidites of the Lachlan Fold Belt in southeastern Australia accumulated in a marginal sea and overlapped an adjoining island arc (Molong volcanic province) developed adjacent to eastern Gondwana. The turbidite succession in the Shoalhaven River Gorge, in the southern highlands of New South Wales, has abundant outcrop and graptolite sites. The succession consists of, from the base up, a unit of mainly thick‐bedded turbidites (undifferentiated Adaminaby Group), a unit with conspicuous bedded chert (Numeralla Chert), a unit with common thin‐bedded turbidites (Bumballa Formation (new name)) and a unit of black shale (Warbisco Shale). Coarse to very coarse sandstone in the Bumballa Formation is rich in quartz and similar to sandstone in the undifferentiated Adaminaby Group. Detrital zircons from sandstone in the Bumballa Formation, and from sandstone at a similar stratigraphic level from the upper Adaminaby Group of the Genoa River area in eastern Victoria, include grains as young as 453–473 Ma, slightly older than the stratigraphic ages.The dominant detrital ages are in the interval 500–700 Ma (Pacific Gondwana component) with a lessor concentration of Grenville ages (1000–1300 Ma). This pattern resembles other Ordovician sandstones from the Lachlan Fold Belt and also occurs in Triassic sandstones and Quaternary sands from eastern Australia. The Upper Ordovician succession is predominantly fine grained, which reflects reduced clastic inputs from the source in the Middle Cambrian to earliest Ordovician Ross‐Delamerian Fold Belts that developed along the eastern active margin of Gondwana. Development of subduction zones in the Late Ordovician marginal sea are considered to be mainly responsible for the diversion of sediment and the resulting reduction in the supply of terrigenous sand to the island arc and eastern part of the marginal sea.     

The eastern boundary of the Baikal collisional belt: Geological,geochronological, and Nd isotopic evidence

New geological. geochronological, and Nd isotopic data are reported for the rocks occurring at the interfluve of the Barguzin, Nomama, and Katera rivers, where the main structural elements of the Early Paleozoic collisional system have been established. The strike-slip and thrust Tompuda-Nomama and Barguzin boundary sutures separate the Svetlaya and the Katera zones of the Baikal-Muya Belt from the Barguzin terrigenous-carbonate terrane. The age estimates of syntectonic (prebatholithic) gneissic granite and gabbrodiorite intrusive bodies (469 ± 4 and 468 ± 8 Ma, respectively) coincide with the age of collisional events in the Ol’khon, Southwest Baikal, and Sayan regions (480–470 Ma). A linear zone with zonal metamorphism and granite-gneiss domes dated at 470 Ma is revealed in the allochthonous fold-nappe packet of the Upper Riphean Barguzin Formation. This zone of Caledonian remobilization marks the collisional front between the Riphean structural units of the Barguzin Terrane consolidated 0.60–0.55 Ga ago and the Baikal-Muya Belt. New data allow us to recognize this zone as the northeastern flank of the Baikal Collisional Belt. The Nd isotopic data for the reference igneous complexes of the collisional zone indicate that the Late Riphean juvenile crust was involved in the Ordovician remobilization in the zone of conjugation of the consolidated Baikalian structural elements at the northeastern flank of the Baikal Belt and likely was a basement of the entire Barguzin Terrane or, at least, its frontal portion. The lateral displacements of the terranes to the northeast during the Early Ordovician collision were constrained by the rigid structural framework of the Baikalides in the Muya segment of the Baikal-Muya Belt, where the Riphean blocks were involved in strike-slip faulting and the Vendian-Cambrian superimposed basin underwent deformation. Finally, it may be concluded that the Early Ordovician was an epoch of collision, complex in kinematics, between heterogeneous blocks of the continental crust: the Baikalides of the Baikal-Muya Belt and polycyclic Barguzin-Vitim Superterrane.     

拉萨地块西段尼雄地区晚古生代地震事件及其地质意义

拉萨地块晚古生代处于伸展还是挤压背景一直以来存在较大的争议.在拉萨地块西段尼雄地区晚古生代地层中新发现了震积岩.拉嘎组一段震积岩单元位于含砾细砂岩冰水沉积中,可见震裂岩、震褶岩及塑性角砾岩等典型震积岩岩石类型,另见各种与震积岩相关的构造和沉积标志;拉嘎组二段震积岩单元位于潮坪沉积中,见液化卷曲变形及球-枕构造等;下拉组震积岩单元位于下段灰岩中,可见典型的粉（泥）晶灰岩脉和自碎屑角砾岩.下拉组和拉嘎组二段震积岩与燧石结核灰岩紧密共生,由此推测拉萨地块中部分晚古生代燧石结核灰岩可能与地震作用密切相关.结合区域资料,认为拉萨地块西段晚古生代地震事件与冈瓦纳大陆北缘裂陷盆地的发育有关,并为拉萨地块晚古生代演化新增了古地震活动资料.      

Upper Ordovician graptolites from the Wagonga Beds near Batemans Bay,New South Wales

Two graptolite faunas are described from outcrops of the Wagonga Beds near Batemans Bay on the south coast of N.S.W. They are of late Eastonian and early Bolindian age. The faunas have been found in two geographically separate localities and, in spite of structural complexities, it is now suggested that the greater part of the Wagonga Beds was deposited in the Late Ordovician. The chert and volcanicrich Wagonga Beds were accumulated prior to, or as contemporaneous lateral facies equivalents of, the thick undifferentiated Upper Ordovician ‘slates and grey‐wackes unit’ that crops out in the same general region.     

Terrane sutures in the Maine Appalachians,USA and adjacent areas

Terrane sutures in the Maine Appalachians and adjacent areas are recognized as melange dominated, deformed accretionary prisms of Ordovician age, and as a broad synmetamorphic transcurrent fault zone of probable Late Silurian-Early Devonian age. Although the accretionary prisms are associated with present day aeromagnetic and Bouguer gravity anomalies, they are probably not associated with present day crustal penetrating boundaries. The geology of the accretionary prisms indicates subduction-obduction dominated regimes during which (1) the Gander and Boundary Mountain (Dunnage) terranes amalgamated and (2) the composite Boundary Mountain-Gander terrane accreted to the Laurentian margin. The Penobscottian orogeny produced and deformed the older of the two accretionary prisms. This accretionary prism indicates that the Penobscottian was a continuous or perhaps diachronous event which spanned the late Cambrian to early Late Ordovician. The younger accretionary prism was produced and deformed during the Taconian orogeny during late Middle to early Late Ordovician. Initial deformation of this accretionary prism may have overlapped the waning stages of the Penobscottian. Portions of the Taconian arc locally overlie the Penobscottian accretionary prism. A synmetamorphic fault zone lies within Precambrian(?) to Ordovician(?) bimodal metavolcanic and metapelitic rocks assigned here to the Avalon terrane. This zone is several kilometres wide and is interpreted to be the postsubduction suture between the Avalon and Gander terranes, and may, in part, represent a fossil transform fault system. The fault zone contains phyllonites as well as shear zones which generally record dextral motion. The phyllonites were previously interpreted as a stratigraphic unit, whereas the shear zones span or are contained within mappable compositional units. Formation of and movement along these phyllonites and shear zones ceased before the intrusion of Early Devonian plutons. Not all faults in south-western Maine are related to the suture. Younger dip and/or strike-slip and thrust faults are approximately parallel to, or may lie within, the older shear zones and they complicate the recognition of the older faults.     

The clew bay group: A displaced terrane of highland border group rocks (Cambro-ordovician) in Northwest Ireland

Marine turbidites, tuffs, black mudstones and conglomerates of the Cambro-Ordovician Clew Bay Group, were deposited in the E–W elongate transtensional Clew Bay Graben that is centred on Clew Bay, NW Ireland. The group is characterized by extensive sedimentary deformation and mass movement on slides; olistostromes, autoclastic breccias and course proximal turbidites are interbedded with apparently less disturbed but often overturned sediments. The Clew Bay Group lies structurally above serpentinized dunite/harzburgite breccias, schistose carbonate peridotites, and other basic and ultrabasic igneous rocks that have ophiolitic geochemical affinities; the sediments may have been in part deposited upon oceanic crust. Ophiolites and sediments that now rest on the Clew Bay Thrust abut Silurian shallow water strata in which the main tectonothermal history, associated with sinistral transcurrent faulting along the thrust zone, is dated at about 410 Ma. The sole thrust dips northward and coalesces with a major deep structure along the Fair Head-Clew Bay Line (FCL) that is the western continuation of the Highland Border Fault of Scotland. Blueschist relics in the Dalradian immediately to the north of the FCL indicate that subduction was active early in the history of the late Cambrian–early Ordovician Grampian orogeny. The Clew Bay Thrust was a sinistral, transpressional shear zone late in its history, but it probably originated as an obduction complex. The Clew Bay Group cannot be traced into sedimentary, metamorphic or structural continuity with the adjacent Dalradian to the north or Ordovician and Silurian rocks in the South Mayo Trough to the south. It should be considered as a distinct terrane (Clew bay Terrane) or a subterrane of Highland Border-type rocks along the southern margin of the Grampian Terrane.     

Stratigraphy and palynostratigraphy, Karoo Supergroup (Permian and Triassic), mid-Zambezi Valley, southern Zambia

The Karoo Supergroup outcropst in the mid-Zambezi Valley, southern Zambia. It is underlain by the Sinakumbe Group of Ordovician to Devonian age. The Lower Karoo Group (Late Carboniferous to Permian age) consists of the basal Siankondobo Sandstone Formation, which comprises three facies, overlain by the Gwembe Coal Formation with its economically important coal deposits, in turn overlain by the Madumabisa Mudstone Formation which consists of lacustrine mudstone, calcilutite, sandstone, and concretionary calcareous beds. The Upper Karoo Group (Triassic to Early Jurassic) is sub-divided into the coarsely arenaceous Escarpment Grit, overlain by the fining upwards Interbedded Sandstone and Mudstone, Red Sandstone; and Batoka Basalt Formations.Palynomorph assemblages suggest that the Siankondobo Sandstone Formation is Late Carboniferous (Gzhelian) to Early Permian (Asselian to Early Sakmarian) in age, the Gwembe Coal Formation Early Permian (Artinskian to Kungurian), the Madumabisa Mudstone Late Permian (Tatarian), and the Interbedded Sandstone and Mudstone Early or Middle Triassic (Late Scythian or Anisian). The marked quantitative variations in the assemblages are due partly to age differences, but they also reflect vegetational differences resulting from different paleoclimates and different facies.The low thermal maturity of the formations (Thermal Alteration Index 2) suggests that the rocks are oil prone. However, the general scarcity of amorphous kerogen, such as the alga Botryococcus sp., and the low proportion of exinous material, indicates a low potential for liquid hydrocarbons. Gas may have been generated, particularly in the coal seams of the Gwembe Coal Formation, that are more deeply buried.     

Middle to Late Ordovician age for the Jindalee Group of the Lachlan Fold Belt,New South Wales: Conodont evidence and some tectonic implications

The first definitive evidence for a late Middle to early Late Ordovician age for the Jindalee Group comes from identification of conodonts, including Periodon aculeatus, preserved in chert from an exposure northeast of Cootamundra, New South Wales. In the Grenfell area, the Hoskins Chert, a constituent formation of the Jindalee Group, also yields conodonts of the same general age, although no diagnostic species have been recognised. Conodonts found in the Jindalee Group, along with a distinctive fossil flora of probable cyanobacterial filaments, are similar to those of the Mugincoble Chert in the vicinity of Parkes. Age correlation of the Jindalee Group with the Girilambone Group is confirmed by the newly found conodonts, but at a much more precise level than previously inferred. However, the tectonic settings of the Jindalee and Girilambone Groups might have been quite distinct, with the Jindalee Group forming in an intra‐arc rift and the Girilambone Group depositing in the backarc Wagga Marginal Basin.     

Polyphase brittle and ductile deformation of Late Jurassic ophiolitic basalt-argillite matrix mélange and stratigraphic overlap sequence,northwestern Washington State

A belt of Jurassic to Cretaceous ophiolitic rocks borders the western margin of the U.S. Cordillera and stretches from central California to northwestern Washington State. The northern end of this belt lies between the San Juan Islands and the Northwest Cascades. Within this region, ophiolitic rocks consist of a succession of oceanic and arc-affinity igneous and sedimentary rocks which form a sedimentary mélange and sedimentary overlap sequence which is imbricated during the mid-Cretaceous. The mélange contains blocks and olistoliths of peridotite, plagiogranite, chert, basalt, and volcanoclastic conglomerate which range in size from a meter to over 1 km and are contained within a matrix of argillite and volcanoclastic breccia and conglomerate. Peridotites were exposed to the sub-aqueous surface along serpentinized shear zones prior to their incorporation into the mélange, and the sedimentary matrix of the mélange underwent brittle deformation during the earliest stages of its structural history. Mélange rocks are overlain in angular unconformity by a Jura-Cretaceous arc-sourced sedimentary succession which is at least 500 meters thick and passes upward from a basal breccia containing clasts of plagiogranite, gabbro, tonalite, chert, and basalt into argillite containing Late Jurassic radiolarians. The argillite is overlain by poorly-sorted greywacke and conglomerate with clast populations similar to those of the basal breccia. The conglomerate fines upward into a massive to bedded, feldspathic-lithic arenite and greywacke that yields mid-Cretaceous detrital zircons. The overlap succession and the mélange are deformed by two generations of highly-penetrative structures (D_1a and D_1b) which produced north-to-east vergent tight-to-isoclinal folds and axial-planar pressure-solution cleavages. All units are further deformed by three generations of penetrative structures. The successively younger NNE to NW, NE, and E-W to WNW trending folds have foliations that cross-cut the earlier structural fabrics and faults. Formation of the mélange required differential elevations during the time of deposition and the presence of rocks which are sourced from both arc and oceanic crust. Extension within the forearc provides a mechanism to exhume peridotites and generate differential topography for arc and oceanic affinity rocks to erode and be incorporated into the mélange as part of olistostromal deposits.     

Variability in Early Amazonian Tharsis stress state based on wrinkle ridges and strike-slip faulting

We present evidence for a decrease in the magnitude of Tharsis-circumferential compressive stress during the Late Hesperian to the Middle Amazonian based on chronologic changes in the predominant style of faulting in southern Amazonis Planitia. Using high-resolution MOLA topography, we identify a population of strike-slip faults that exhibit Middle Amazonian-aged displacements of regional chrono-stratigraphic units. These strike-slip faults are adjacent to an older population of previously documented Late Hesperian-aged thrust faults (wrinkle ridges). Along-strike orientations of these thrust and strike-slip faults reveal the Tharsis-radial stress to be the area's most compressive remote principal stress and that this stress orientation and magnitude persisted throughout the Late Hesperian to the Middle Amazonian. We show that the change in the predominant style of faulting from thrust faulting to strike-slip faulting during this time requires a decrease of the Tharsis-circumferential compressive stress to a magnitude less than lithostatic load, with negligible change in stress orientation.     

甘孜—理塘断裂带北段构造特征及其演化过程

甘孜-理塘断裂带是义敦造山带与雅江褶皱带的分界断裂。该带由韧性又脆性冲断层、平移断层,以及各种岩块、构造岩片等组合而成。其演化历史主要经历了晚三叠世洋壳的俯冲、晚三叠世末期弧-陆碰撞、陆内会聚和喜马拉雅期断陷的复杂演化过程。     

西藏1∶5万班戈县西南地区四幅区调成果与展望

西藏1∶5万班戈县西南地区四幅区域地质矿产调查为青藏专项地质调查项目。该项目取得的主要成果为:1发现了区内寒武系火山岩呈角度不整合覆盖于念青唐古拉群之上,其内部划分为3个岩性段;新建了上寒武统他多雄组。2对下奥陶统扎扛组进行了解体;新建了芙蓉统龙郊组。3通过详细的地质填图,在永珠蛇绿混杂岩带中新发现一套沉积混杂岩,认为该混杂岩区域延伸稳定;新建了晚侏罗世索尔岩组。4对蛇绿岩填图单元进行了解体,由超镁铁质岩、辉长岩、席状岩墙群、枕状玄武岩岩片、放射虫硅质岩组成,新建了晚侏罗世永珠蛇绿岩群。5确定了念青唐古拉群,新识别出的变质花岗岩形成时代为中新元古代,为研究古印度地盾北缘罗迪尼亚大陆形成期和裂解期的构造热事件提供了新资料。     

Tectonic evolution of the Mesozoic Verkhoyansk–Kolyma belt (NE Asia)

The Verkhoyansk–Kolyma belt (VK) forms the western part of the Verkhoyansk–Chukotka Mesozoic orogen (NE Asia) and lies between the Siberian craton on the western side, the Mesozoic–Cenozoic Koryak–Kamchatka accretionary orogen on the eastern side, and the Arctic Alaskan craton to the north. The VK results from the collision of the Siberian craton and the Kolyma–Omolon composite terrane (KO), which acted as an indentor resulting the Kolyma orocline. The KO is made up of ophiolite and olistostromal and schistose units that were amalgamated during the Middle–Late Jurassic by thrust and nappe tectonics under greenschist facies metamorphism. This was followed in Latest Jurassic by thrusting and strike-slip faulting related to the collision of the KO composite terrane with the Siberian craton. This collision also produced the Verkhoyansk fold-and-thrust belt in the Siberian continental margin. In the earliest Cretaceous, collision of the Alaskan and Siberian margins resulted in further thrust and strike-slip tectonism.     

The origin and emplacement of the Lajishankou ophiolite complex in the South Qilian belt: evidences from geological mapping

Many ophiolite complexes like those of Oman and New Caledonia represent fragments of ancient oceanic crust and upper mantle generated at supra‐subduction zone environments and have been obducted onto the adjacent rifted continental margin together with the accretionary complexes and intra‐oceanic arcs. The Lajishan ophiolite complexes in the Qilian orogenic belt along the NE edge of the Tibet‐Qinghai Plateau are one of several ophiolites situated to the south of the Central Qilian block. Our geological mapping and petrological investigations suggest that the Lajishankou ophiolite complex consists of serpentinite, wehrlite, pyroxenite, gabbro, dolerite, and pillow and massive basalts that occur in a series of elongate fault‐bounded slices. An accretionary complex composed mainly of basalt, radiolarian chert, sandstone, mudstone, and mélange lies structurally beneath the ophiolite complex. The Lajishankou ophiolite complex and accretionary complex were emplaced onto the Qingshipo Formation of the Central Qilian block which shows features typical of turbidites deposited in a deep‐water environment of passive continental margin. Our geochemical and geochronological studies indicate that the mafic rocks in the Lajishankou ophiolite complex can be categorized into three distinct groups: massive island arc tholeiites, 509 Ma back‐arc dolerite dykes, and 491 Ma pillow basaltic and dolerite slices that are of seamount origin in a back‐arc basin. The ophiolite and accretionary complex constitute a Cambrian‐early Ordovician trench‐arc system within the South Qilian belt during the early Paleozoic southward subduction of the South Qilian Ocean prior to Early Ordovician obduction of this system onto the Central Qilian block.     

Synthesis of Palaeozoic deformational events and terrane accretion in the Canadian Appalachians

Plate tectonic theory predicts that most deformation is associated with subduction and terrane accretion, with some deformation associated with transform/transcurrent movements. Deformation associated with subduction varies between two end members: (1) where the tectonic regime is dominated by subduction of oceanic lithosphere containing small terranes, a narrow surface zone of accretionary deformation along the subduction zone starts diachronously on the subducting plate at the trench as material is transferred from the subducting plate to the over-riding plate; and (2) where continent-continent collision is occurring, a wide surface zone of accretionary deformation starts synchronously or with limited diachronism. Palaeozoic deformational events in the Canadian Appalachians correspond to narrow diachronous events in the Ordovician and Silurian, whereas Devonian, Carboniferous and Permian deformational events are widespread and broadly synchronous. Along the western side of the Canadian Appalachians, the Taconian deformational event starts diachronously throughout the Ordovician and corresponds to the north-north-west accretion of the Notre Dame, Ascot-Weedon, St Victor and various ophiolitic massifs (volcanic arc and peri-arc terranes) over cratonic North America. Within the eastern half of the Central Mobile Belt, the Late Cambrian-Early Ordovician Penobscotian deformational event corresponds to the ?south-easterly accretion of the Exploits subzone (various volcanic are and peri-arc terranes) over the Gander Zone (?continental rise). In the centre of the orogen, the Late Ordovician-Silurian Beothukan deformational event corresponds to the south-easterly accretion of the Notre Dame over the Exploits-Gander subzones. Along the south-eastern side of the Central Mobile Belt, the Silurian Ganderian deformational event corresponds to the north-north-east, sinistral transcurrent accretion of the Avalon Composite Terrane (microcontinent) over the Gander-Exploits zones. Along the south-eastern half of the orogen, the Late Silurian-Middle Devonian Acadian deformation event corresponds to the westerly accretion of the Meguma terrane (intradeep or continental rise) over the Avalon Composite Terrane. Affecting the entire orogen, the Late Devonian, Carboniferous and Permian, Acadian-Alleghanian deformational events correspond to the east-west convergence between Laurentia and Gondwana (continent-continent collision).     

Tectonostratigraphy of the exposed Silurian deposits in Arabia

Exposed Silurian deposits in Arabia are represented by the Qalibah Group, the Qusaiba and Sharawra formations. The Qusaiba Formation is composed of dark-gray claystones and siltstones. It is disconformably underlain by the Late Ordovician–Early Silurian? Uqlah Formation or unconformably underlain by the Late Ordovician Zarqa or Sarah formations. It is disconformably overlain by the Sharawra Formation. The Early Rhuddanian basal “hot shale” of the Qusaiba Formation represents the early stage of the early Silurian marine transgression over the Gondwana broad shelf. It is a regional marker used to outline the structural configuration of the area prior to the Silurian time. The Sharawra Formation is composed of siltstone and sandstone. It is unconformably overlain by the Late Silurian?–Early Devonian Tawil Formation. Silurian deposits show a pronounced thinning from 992 m in the Tabuk area in the west and are completely missing in the northern part of the Qusayba depression in the east. The thinning of the Qusaiba shale and Sharawra sandstone is interpreted as due to depositional and erosional features, respectively. Thinning and distribution of the Early Rhuddanian shale “hot shale” is depositional which is affected by preexisting Late Ordovician paleo-highs in central Arabia. Thinning of the Sharawra sandstones is erosional which is attributed to Late Silurian tectonic movements synchronous with the Acadian uplift phase of the Caledonian tectonic movements. The main structural elements in central Arabia are represented by the north–south trending and northerly plunging Hail arch and to a much lesser extent the northwest–southeast trending and southerly plunging Qusayba high.     

Aquifer heterogeneity: Hydrogeological and hydrochemical properties of the Botany Sands aquifer and their impact on contaminant transport

Detailed geological mapping and drilling has shown that the contact between the Cambrian volcano‐sedimentary sequence at Rosebery and the Mt Read Volcanics is formed by a major thrust fault dipping east at 40° and having a displacement of at least 1.5 km. The sedimentary sequence is part of the Dundas Group, a Middle to Late Cambrian forearc‐like sequence which unconformably overlaps the volcanics south of Rosebery. The Rosebery Thrust Fault marks the eastern boundary of a zone of folding, faulting and disruption which affects the Dundas Group and the tectonically interfingered and underlying basaltic greywacke‐mudstone sequence of the Crimson Creek Formation. At least some of this deformation occurred prior to deposition of the Ordovician Limestone, as evidenced by marked angular discordances. The complex area can be interpreted as a Cambrian accretionary prism‐forearc‐arc sequence developed above an east‐dipping subduction zone.

The Henty Fault System, which cuts obliquely through the Mt Read belt and encloses a misfit wedge of sediments, pillow lavas, gabbros and ultramafic rocks, is interpreted as a remnant of an inter‐arc basin. The fault system separates a dacitic‐andesitic arc segment to the northwest from a more rhyolitic segment to the southeast. The latter is overlain by a younger arc sequence, the Tyndall Group, which may have been the source for the Dundas Group volcanic detritus.     

ZEDONG TERRANE, A MID CRETACEOUS INTRA-OCEANIC ARC, SOUTH TIBET

ZEDONG TERRANE, A MID CRETACEOUS INTRA-OCEANIC ARC, SOUTH TIBET     

Adaminaby Group west of Batemans Bay: Deformation and metamorphism of the Narooma accretionary complex,NSW

This study provides new structural data that show that the Adaminaby Group is part of the Narooma accretionary complex and has been overprinted by HT/LP metamorphism associated with Middle Devonian Moruya Suite intrusions. The grade of metamorphism based on Kübler Indices is the same in the Wagonga and Adaminaby Groups at Batemans Bay inferring that these rocks were involved in the same accretionary event. White micas in slates of the Adaminaby Group record apparent K–Ar ages of 384.6 ± 7.9 Ma and 395.8 ± 8.1 Ma. These ages are believed to represent the age of Middle to Upper Devonian Buckenbowra Granodiorite. Kübler Index values indicate lower epizonal (greenschist facies) metamorphic conditions and are not influenced by heating in metamorphic aureoles of the plutons. All b cell lattice parameter values are characteristic of intermediate pressure facies conditions although they are lower in the metamorphic aureole of the Buckenbowra Granodiorite than in the country rock, defining two areas with dissimilar baric conditions. East of the Buckenbowra Granodiorite, b cell lattice parameter values outside the contact aureole (x = 9.033 Å; n = 8) indicate P = 4 kb, and assuming a temperature of 300°C, infer a depth of burial of approximately 15 km for these rocks with a geothermal gradient of 20°C/km. In the metamorphic aureole of the Buckenbowra Granodiorite, b cell lattice parameter values (x = 9.021 Å; n = 41) indicate P = 3.1 kb inferring exhumation of the Adaminaby Group rocks to a depth of approximately 11 km prior to intrusion. A geothermal gradient of 36°C/km operated in the aureole during intrusion. An extensional back-arc environment prevailed in the Adaminaby Group during the Middle to Upper Devonian.