Basement and cover relations on the northern margin of the Amadeus Basin, central Australia

A major, linear, west-trending deformed zone (The Redbank Zone), 350 km long and up to 20 km wide, can be identified in the Arunta Block immediately north of the Amadeus Basin. The marked linearity of this zone and of the coincident gravity anomaly probably result from thrust-fault movement during the Carboniferous Alice Springs Orogeny. However, in the Ormiston area, there is evidence that the zone originated prior to 1070 m.y. and acted as a major crustal feature controlling the later orogenic event.The Alice Springs Orogeny affected the overlying Proterozoic and Lower Palaeozoic cover rocks as well as the Arunta Block basement. During the orogeny, steep north-dipping thrusts within the Redbank Zone were reactivated causing uplift to the north. These faults penetrated the Heavitree Quartzite—the basal unit of the cover sequence—to drive wedges of basement, with attached veneers of Heavitree Quartzite, for up to 20 km southward within the overlying Bitter Springs Formation. The nappes did not reach the surface or penetrate formations above the Bitter Springs. Accompanying nappe emplacement the Basin to the south rapidly deepened to receive a thick wedge of synorogenic molasse sediments.Gravity, sedimentary and structural features combine to suggest that the Alice Springs orogeny movements reached their maximum on the central part of the northern margin of the Amadeus Basin, in the Ormiston area.