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Landscape evolution and tectonics in southeastern Australia

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Created 13/01/2025

Updated 13/01/2025

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Rivers flowing north and west across southeastern Australia are older than the formation of the eastern continental margin and the Murray Basin. In the Jurassic and most of the Cretaceous, Australia was bound by land to the east (Pacifica), from which rivers carried sediment to the Eromanga-Surat Basin. The Otway-Gippsland Basin, bound to the north by the Victoria Divide, accumulated sediment from the early Cretaceous. At about 80 Ma, tectonic rifting along the line of the present continental shelf cut off the headwaters of Australian rivers then rising in Pacifica, beheading many rivers and reducing the sediment supply to the sedimentary basins. The input of coarse fluvial sediment to the Eromanga-Surat Basin ceased, but was maintained to the Otway-Gippsland Basin. In the Palaeocene, the Murray Basin started to sink, creating a divide between the Murray and Eromanga-Surat Basins and cutting off the southern sediment supply to the latter. Down-warping along the Tasman Sea margin formed the Great Divide between Tasman Sea drainage and the inland sedimentary basins. Rivers east of this divide were reversed, and a Great Escarpment was formed which retreated inland. Cainozoic volcanicity and Miocene faults with throws of hundreds of metres have further complicated the topography. The history derived from the study of river development and the evolution of major divides is paralleled by that of basin sedimentation. Basin down-warping formed the major divides, and led to the erosional development of the present landscape .

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Title Landscape evolution and tectonics in southeastern Australia
Language eng
Licence notspecified
Landing Page https://devweb.dga.links.com.au/data/dataset/b00466ea-5615-42bb-96b5-810fa9843c9d
Contact Point
Geoscience Australia
clientservices@ga.gov.au
Reference Period 20/04/2018
Geospatial Coverage {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": [[[138.0, -40.0], [154.0, -40.0], [154.0, -27.0], [138.0, -27.0], [138.0, -40.0]]]}
Data Portal data.gov.au

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on data.gov.au "Landscape evolution and tectonics in southeastern Australia". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://devweb.dga.links.com.au/data/dataset/landscape-evolution-and-tectonics-in-southeastern-australia