The Delamerian Orogen on mainland Australia plotted in time and space

The Delamerian Orogen is a spatially (~1500&nbsp;km long by ~300 km wide) and temporally (ca. 830 to 495 Ma) extensive orogenic system spanning five states in central and eastern Australia. The spatial extent of the orogen was defined by Glen (2005) as the distribution of rocks that underwent their first deformation in the mid-to-late Cambrian Delamerian Orogeny, with the orogen impacted by younger geodynamic events in the Phanerozoic. The orogen is poorly exposed overall and is mostly covered by a series of younger sedimentary basins, volcanic rocks and regolith.

In the last few years, a multi-disciplinary program of geological and geophysical data collection and integration, focused on the Delamerian Orogen, was undertaken as part of Geoscience Australia’s (GA) Exploring for the Future (EFTF) program and the Mineral Exploration Cooperative Research Centres (MinEx CRC) National Drilling Initiative (NDI). This work program, outlined by Gilmore et al. (2023), compliments the Geological Survey of South Australia’s recent MinEx CRC NDI drilling campaign in the Loch Lilly-Kars Belt in South Australia (Wise, 2023). These efforts have resulted in a greatly increased volume of lithological, geochronological, geochemical, and geophysical datasets, especially in the vicinity of the Loch Lilly-Kars Belt (e.g. Brotodewo et al., 2021; Cheng et al., 2024a; Cheng et al., 2024b; Clark et al., 2024; Curtis, 2022; Doublier et al., 2024; Mole et al., 2024; Pitt et al., 2023; Taylor et al., in prep.; Wise, 2023). Two time-space plots and an accompanying map (appendices A, B and C)&nbsp;have been prepared to convey the geological history of the Delamerian Orogen within the DCD project area on mainland Australia:



·&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;An overview time-space plot designed to provide a simplified geological history through the orogen from the Archaean to the present.

·&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A detailed time-space plot with three (northern, central and southern) traverses to reflect changes in geological history and stratigraphy along the strike and width of the Delamerian Orogen, focussed on the start of the Ediacaran to the end of the Devonian.

·&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Location map showing the traverses used in the detailed time-space plot.

The time-space plots are the first holistic time-space plots for the Delamerian Orogen on mainland Australia. They allow a comparison of the similarities and differences in the age and location of magmatism, sedimentation, deformation and mineralisation across the Delamerian Orogen in New South Wales (NSW), South Australia (SA) and Victoria, at both a high level (overview) and stratigraphic unit level (detailed).

This record outlines the methodology and data used (Appendix D)&nbsp;to compile the time-space plots.



Tags: Darling-Curnamona-Delamerian (DCD), Deep dive projects, Delamerian Deep Dive, Delamerian Orogen, EFTF – Exploring For The Future, Geochronology, Geology not elsewhere classified, NSW, New South Wales, Published_External, Resourcing Australia’s Prosperity, geochronology, geology
Organization: Geoscience Australia Data