Springs Orogeny (spring + orogeny)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Kinds of Springs Orogeny

  • alice spring orogeny


  • Selected Abstracts


    Timing relationships between pegmatite emplacement, metamorphism and deformation during the intra-plate Alice Springs Orogeny, central Australia

    JOURNAL OF METAMORPHIC GEOLOGY, Issue 9 2008
    I. S. BUICK
    Abstract In the Harts Range (central Australia), the upper amphibolite facies to lower granulite facies, c. 480,460 Ma Harts Range Metamorphic Complex (HRMC), and the upper amphibolite facies, c. 340,320 Ma Entia Gneiss Complex are cut by numerous, generally peraluminous pegmatites and their deformed equivalents. The pegmatites have previously been interpreted as locally derived partial melts. However, SHRIMP U,Pb monazite and zircon dating of 29 pegmatites or their deformed equivalents, predominantly from the HRMC, reveal that they were emplaced episodically throughout almost the entire duration of the polyphase, c. 450,300 Ma intra-plate Alice Springs Orogeny. Episodes of pegmatite intrusion correlate with the age of major Alice Springs-age structures and with deposition of syn-orogenic sedimentary rocks in the adjacent Centralian Superbasin. Similar Alice Springs ages have not been obtained from anatectic country rocks in the HRMC, suggesting that the pegmatites were not locally derived. Instead, they are interpreted as highly fractionated granites, and imply that much larger parental Alice Springs-age granites exist at depth. The mechanism to allow repeated felsic magmatism in an intraplate setting, where all exposed rock types had a previous high-temperature history, is enigmatic. However, we suggest that episodic underthrusting and dehydration of unmetamorphosed Centralian Superbasin sedimentary rocks allowed crustal fertility to maintained over a c. 140 Ma interval during the intra-plate Alice Springs Orogeny. [source]


    Ordovician high-grade metamorphism of a newly recognised late Neoproterozoic terrane in the northern Harts Range,central Australia

    JOURNAL OF METAMORPHIC GEOLOGY, Issue 4 2001
    I. S. Buick
    Abstract Granulite facies rocks from the northernmost Harts Range Complex (Arunta Inlier, central Australia) have previously been interpreted as recording a single clockwise cycle of presumed Palaeoproterozoic metamorphism (800,875 °C and >9,10 kbar) and subsequent decompression in a kilometre-scale, E-W striking zone of noncoaxial, high-grade (c. 700,735 °C and 5.8,6.4 kbar) deformation. However, new SHRIMP U-Pb age determinations of zircon, monazite and titanite from partially melted metabasites and metapelites indicate that granulite facies metamorphism occurred not in the Proterozoic, but in the Ordovician (c. 470 Ma). The youngest metamorphic zircon overgrowths from two metabasites (probably meta-volcaniclastics) yield 206Pb/238U ages of 478±4 Ma and 471±7 Ma, whereas those from two metapelites yield ages of 463±5 Ma and 461±4 Ma. Monazite from the two metapelites gave ages equal within error to those from metamorphic zircon rims in the same rock (457±5 Ma and 462±5 Ma, respectively). Zircon, and possibly monazite ages are interpreted as dating precipitation of these minerals from crystallizing melt within leucosomes. In contrast, titanite from the two metabasites yield 206Pb/238U ages that are much younger (411±5 Ma & 417±7 Ma, respectively) than those of coexisting zircon, which might indicate that the terrane cooled slowly following final melt crystallization. One metabasite has a second titanite population with an age of 384±7 Ma, which reflects titanite growth and/or recrystallization during the 400,300 Ma Alice Springs Orogeny. The c. 380 Ma titanite age is indistinguishable from the age of magmatic zircon from a small, late and weakly deformed plug of biotite granite that intruded the granulites at 387±4 Ma. These data suggest that the northern Harts Range has been subject to at least two periods of reworking (475,460 Ma & 400,300 Ma) during the Palaeozoic. Detrital zircon from the metapelites and metabasites, and inherited zircon from the granite, yield similar ranges of Proterozoic ages, with distinct age clusters at c. 1300,1000 and c. 650 Ma. These data imply that the deposition ages of the protoliths to the Harts Range Complex are late Neoproterozoic or early Palaeozoic, not Palaeoproterozoic as previously assumed. [source]


    Distribution of Palaeozoic reworking in the Western Arunta Region and northwestern Amadeus Basin from 40Ar/39Ar thermochronology: implications for the evolution of intracratonic basins

    BASIN RESEARCH, Issue 3 2009
    Sandra McLaren
    ABSTRACT The Centralian Superbasin in central Australia is one of the most extensive intracratonic basins known from a stable continental setting, but the factors controlling its formation and subsequent structural dismemberment continue to be debated. Argon thermochronology of K-feldspar, sensitive to a broad range of temperatures (,150 to 350 °C), provides evidence for the former extent and thickness of the superbasin and points toward thickening of the superbasin succession over the now exhumed Arunta Region basement. These data suggest that before Palaeozoic tectonism, there was around 5,6 km of sediment present over what is now the northern margin of the Amadeus Basin, and, if the Centralian superbasin was continuous, between 6 and 8 km over the now exhumed basement. 40Ar/39Ar data from neoformed fine-grained muscovite suggests that Palaeozoic deformation and new mineral growth occurred during the earliest compressional phase of the Alice Springs Orogeny (ASO) (440,375 Ma) and was restricted to shear zones. Significantly, several shear zones active during the late Mesoproterozoic Teapot Orogeny were not reactivated at this time, suggesting that the presence of pre-existing structures was not the only controlling factor in localizing Palaeozoic deformation. A range of Palaeozoic ages of 440,300 Ma from samples within and external to shear zones points to thermal disturbance from at least the early Silurian through until the late Carboniferous and suggests final cooling and exhumation of the terrane in this interval. The absence of evidence for active deformation and/or new mineral growth in the late stages of the ASO (350,300 Ma) is consistent with a change in orogenic dynamics from thick-skinned regionally extensive deformation to a more restricted localized high-geothermal gradient event. [source]


    Testing long-term patterns of basin sedimentation by detrital zircon geochronology, Centralian Superbasin, Australia

    BASIN RESEARCH, Issue 3 2007
    D. W. Maidment
    ABSTRACT Detrital zircon geochronology of Neoproterozoic to Devonian sedimentary rocks from the Georgina and Amadeus basins has been used to track changes in provenance that reflect the development and inversion of the former Australian Superbasin. Through much of the Neoproterozoic, sediments appear to have been predominantly derived from local sources in the Arunta and Musgrave inliers. Close similarities between the detrital age signatures of late Neoproterozoic sedimentary rocks in the two basins suggests that they were contiguous at this time. A dominant population of 1.2,1.0 Ga zircon in Early Cambrian sediments of the Amadeus Basin reflects the uplift of the Musgrave Inlier during the Petermann Orogeny between 560 and 520 Ma, which shed a large volume of detritus northwards into the Amadeus Basin. Early Cambrian sedimentary rocks in the Georgina Basin have a much smaller proportion of 1.2,1.0 Ga detritus, possibly due to the formation of sub-basins along the northern margin of the Amadeus Basin which might have acted as a barrier to sediment transfer. An influx of 0.6,0.5 Ga zircon towards the end of the Cambrian coincides with the transgression of the Larapintine Sea across central Australia, possibly as a result of intracratonic rifting. Detrital zircon age spectra of sedimentary rocks deposited within this epicontinental sea are very similar to those of coeval sedimentary rocks from the Pacific Gondwana margin, implying that sediment was transported into central Australia from the eastern continental margin. The remarkably consistent ,Pacific Gondwana' signature of Cambro-Ordovician sediments in central and eastern Australia reflects a distal source, possibly from east Antarctica or the East African Orogen. The peak of the marine incursion into central Australia in the early to mid Ordovician coincides with granulite-facies metamorphism at mid-crustal depths between the Amadeus and Georgina basins (the Larapinta Event). The presence of the epicontinental sea, the relative lack of a local basement zircon component in Cambro-Ordovician sedimentary rocks and their maturity suggest that metamorphism was not accompanied by mountain building, consistent with an extensional or transtensional setting for this tectonism. Sediments deposited at ,435,405 and ,365 Ma during the Alice Springs Orogeny have detrital age signatures similar to those of Cambro-Ordovician sedimentary rocks, reflecting uplift and reworking of the older succession into narrow foreland basins adjacent to the orogen. [source]


    Multiphase cooling and exhumation of the southern Adelaide Fold Belt: constraints from apatite fission track data

    BASIN RESEARCH, Issue 1 2000
    H. J. Gibson
    Data from apatite fission track analysis are presented for 20 outcrop samples collected in the southern Adelaide Fold Belt, South Australia. Interpretation of these data, with the aid of numerical models which allow inference of multiphase cooling histories, indicate three discrete cooling events that are likely to correlate with sedimentation events in surrounding depositional settings. An event beginning some time after 85 Ma (Late Cretaceous) was characterized by cooling throughout the study area from temperatures of roughly 50 to 70 °C. An event beginning at 300,270 Ma (Late Palaeozoic) was characterized by cooling from temperatures >120 °C in all areas except for the Mount Lofty Ranges and Murray Bridge region, where peak temperatures were only 95,115 °C prior to Palaeozoic cooling. Some samples from these subregions of relatively cool Late Palaeozoic temperatures also retain evidence for even earlier cooling from temperatures >120 °C, beginning prior to 350 Ma. We interpret the post 85-Ma event as the consequence of regional exhumation from a depth of 1.0,1.6 km. The Late Palaeozoic event (300,270 Ma) is interpreted as cooling associated with the termination of the Alice Springs Orogeny, while cooling prior to 350 Ma probably represents the final stages of Early Middle Palaeozoic unroofing of the southern Adelaide Fold Belt. The results highlight the importance of regional, episodic postorogenic exhumation of Palaeozoic fold belts, where , in some cases , conventional methods have erroneously suggested relatively long-term stability. [source]