Early Permian strike-slip basin formation and felsic volcanism in the Manning Group,southern New England Orogen,eastern Australia

The Manning Group is characterised by rapidly filled strike-slip basins that developed during the early Permian along the Peel--Manning Fault System in the southern New England Orogen. Typically, the Manning Group has been difficult to date owing to the lack of fossiliferous units or igneous rocks. Thus, the timing of transition from an accretionary convergent margin in the late Carboniferous to dominantly strike-slip tectonic regimes that involved development and emplacement of the Great Serpentinite Belt (Weraerai terrane) is not well constrained. One exception are rhyolites of the Ramleh Volcanics that were erupted into the Echo Hills Formation. These developed along the dextral Monkey Creek Fault splay east of the Peel--Manning Fault System. Zircons extracted from the Ramleh Volcanics yield a U–Pb (SHRIMP) age of 295.6?±?4.6?Ma that constrains the minimum age of deposition in this basin to earliest Permian. Whole-rock geochemistry indicates these are peraluminous felsic melts enriched in LREE and incompatible elements with strong depletions in U, Nb, Sr and Ti. These are similar in age and composition to the nearby S-type Bundarra and Hillgrove plutonic supersuites. We suggest that extensive movement along the east-dipping Peel--Manning Fault System was responsible, not only for strike-slip basin development at the surface (Manning Group), but was also the locus for crustal melting that was responsible for generating S-type felsic melts that utilised hanging-wall fault splays as conduits to the surface or to coalesce in the crust as batholiths exclusively to the east of the Peel--Manning Fault System.