Tag

tectonics

38 posts

• 12 May 2026The Mud That Became Mountains: The Flinders Ranges' Adelaide GeosynclineThe Flinders Ranges of South Australia preserve a 700-million-year story of rifting, sedimentation, and compression that turned ancient seafloor mud into towering quartzite ridges.
• 12 May 2026The Gneiss That Remembers: The Proterozoic Basement of the Gawler CratonBeneath South Australia's Gawler Craton lies 1.7-billion-year-old gneiss—rock once buried 25 kilometres deep, now exposed by tectonic uplift and erosion, that records the assembly of Proterozoic Austr
• 10 May 2026The Fused Shore: The Granites of the Bunger HillsIn Antarctica's Bunger Hills, 1.2-billion-year-old Australian granite reveals when two continents were one, fused by the same tectonic collision that built the Albany-Fraser Orogen.
• 10 May 2026The Sunken River: The Turbidites of the Nankai TroughOff northwest Australia, sediment cascades from the continent into the deep Nankai Trough, building a 4-kilometre-thick fan of turbidite layers that record 15 million years of tectonic unravelling.
• 10 May 2026The Copper Cauldron: The Porphyry Deposits of the Mount Isa InlierIn northwest Queensland, the Mount Isa Inlier holds one of the world's great copper and lead-zinc provinces, forged 1.65 billion years ago by hydrothermal fluids rising through fractured Proterozoic c
• 10 May 2026The Petrified Thunder: The Shoalhaven River's Permian Glacial PavementsNear Nowra, NSW, 270-million-year-old glacial pavements preserve scratches and grooves etched by Permian ice sheets, recording when Australia lay frozen at the South Pole.
• 10 May 2026The Lava That Became a Mountain: The Glasshouse Mountains of Queensland23-million-year-old volcanic plugs, the Glasshouse Mountains of southeast Queensland are the eroded cores of rhyolite and trachyte volcanoes that erupted through sandstone bedrock.
• 10 May 2026The Lava That Became Granite: The Moruya Batholith's Slow CoolingHow the Moruya Batholith on the New South Wales coast preserves a 390-million-year record of magma rising, cooling, and exhumation along the ancient Gondwanan margin.
• 10 May 2026The Drowned River: The Murray Canyon of the Continental ShelfBeneath the Southern Ocean off South Australia, the Murray River's ancient channel continues across the seafloor as a 150-kilometre submarine canyon, carved when the shelf was dry land.
• 10 May 2026The Ice That Carved a Strait: The Bassian PlainDuring the last glacial maximum, sea levels dropped 120 metres, exposing the Bassian Plain—a land bridge connecting Tasmania to the mainland where now the cold waters of Bass Strait flow.
• 09 May 2026The Diamond Sands: The Zircon Grains of the Jack HillsIn Western Australia's Jack Hills, 4.4-billion-year-old zircon crystals—the oldest known terrestrial material—preserve a record of Earth's first continents and a cool, wet surface only 150 million yea
• 09 May 2026The Salt That Bends: The Halite Diapirs of the Canning BasinBeneath the Kimberley's desert plains, ancient salt layers have flowed upward through 400 million years of rock, forming domes that trap oil, distort strata, and reshape the land above.
• 09 May 2026The Basalt Staircase: The Cooling Columns of the Tasmanian CoastAt Cape Raoul on Tasmania's southeast coast, 60-metre-high basalt columns record a 55-million-year-old lava flow that cooled into perfect hexagonal prisms, now sculpted by Southern Ocean storms.
• 09 May 2026The Fossil River: The Cretaceous Channels of the Ceduna DeltaDeep beneath the Great Australian Bight, a 100-million-year-old river system—the Ceduna Delta—preserves 12 cubic kilometres of sediment and a record of Antarctica's final separation.
• 09 May 2026The Inverted Mountain: The Woodleigh Impact StructureBeneath the flat wheatlands of Western Australia, a 360-million-year-old impact crater preserves a record of Devonian catastrophe and the slow healing of a continent.
• 09 May 2026The Gold That Walked: The Witwatersrand Clues of the PilbaraIn Western Australia's Pilbara, 3.4-billion-year-old conglomerates preserve the earliest known placer gold deposits—river sediments that predate all life on land.
• 09 May 2026The Gold That Rained From Space: The Witwatersrand Conglomerates and the Bendigo ConnectionHow the Witwatersrand-style gold deposits of Western Australia's Yilgarn Craton preserve a 2.7-billion-year record of ancient rivers, meteorite bombardment, and the richest gold province on Earth.
• 09 May 2026The Crust That Wasn't There: The Albany-Fraser OrogenThe Albany-Fraser Orogen records a 1.3-billion-year-old collision that welded the Yilgarn and Gawler cratons together, creating a belt of charnockite and granulite that now forms Australia's southern
• 08 May 2026The Long Rain: The Mound Springs of the Great Artesian BasinAcross the arid heart of Australia, water that fell as rain half a million years ago rises silently through artesian mound springs, sustaining desert oases and endemic life found nowhere else on Earth
• 08 May 2026Tasmania's Dolerite: Jurassic Columns and the Skeleton of GondwanaAcross Tasmania, cliff faces and plateau tors are the exposed bones of a Jurassic intrusive complex—dolerite sills and dykes emplaced as Gondwana began to rift about 180 million years ago.
• 08 May 2026The Recycled Range: The S-Type Granites of New EnglandExplore the S-type granites of the New England Orogen, where ancient seafloor sediments were recycled into massive granite plateaus 300 million years ago.
• 08 May 2026The Fossil Cold: The Blockstreams of the Snowy MountainsExplore the periglacial landscapes of the Snowy Mountains, where frost-shattering and stone rivers preserve the record of Australia's recent glacial past.
• 08 May 2026The Fault-Valve Pulse: The Victorian GoldfieldsAn exploration of the tectonic forces and 'fault-valve' processes that created the world-class gold deposits of the Victorian Goldfields 400 million years ago.
• 08 May 2026The Brittle Seam: The Southwest Seismic ZoneAn exploration of the Southwest Seismic Zone in Western Australia, where ancient Archean crust snaps under modern tectonic pressure.
• 08 May 2026The Granite Sentinel: The Batholith of Wilsons PromontoryAn exploration of the Devonian granite of Wilsons Promontory, the sculptural forces of spheroidal weathering, and the ancient land bridge of Bassianna.
• 08 May 2026The Heavy Anchor: The Olympic Dam BrecciaAn exploration of the Olympic Dam deposit in South Australia, a 1.6-billion-year-old subterranean "supergiant" mineral system formed by catastrophic hydrothermal explosions.
• 08 May 2026The Polar Rift: The Otway Eumeralla FormationExplore the Eumeralla Formation of the Otway Ranges, where 110-million-year-old sandstones preserve the record of Australia's polar dinosaurs and the rifting of Gondwana.
• 08 May 2026The Scrapings of the Abyss: The Hodgkinson ProvinceAn exploration of the Hodgkinson Province in North Queensland, where Paleozoic subduction scraped the ocean floor into a chaotic, mineral-rich mountain range.
• 08 May 2026The Frozen Bubble: The Mole Granite of New EnglandAn exploration of the Mole Granite in New South Wales, a massive 245-million-year-old subterranean magma chamber now exposed as a rugged, mineral-rich plateau.
• 08 May 2026The Invisible Suture: The Tanami EventAn exploration of the 1.8-billion-year-old Tanami Event, the tectonic collision that welded the Australian cratons together and created its remote gold deposits.
• 08 May 2026The Carbonate Veneer: The Evolution of the Great Barrier ReefAn exploration of the Great Barrier Reef's geological history, where Miocene plate tectonics and Pleistocene sea-level shifts created a massive limestone archive built by life.
• 08 May 2026The Metallic Marrow: The Mount Isa InlierExploration of the Mount Isa Inlier in Queensland, where 1.6-billion-year-old tectonic collisions created one of the world's richest deposits of lead, zinc, and copper.
• 08 May 2026The Basalt Stairs: The Monaro VolcanicsAn exploration of the Monaro Volcanics, where Eocene lava flows created a high-altitude basalt plateau of fertile black soils and geometric stone columns.
• 08 May 2026The Giant’s Scoria: The Conglomerates of Kata TjutaAn exploration of the massive conglomerate domes of Kata Tjuta and their origins as high-energy debris from an ancient, vanished mountain range.
• 08 May 2026The Antecedent Saw: The Finke RiverA study of the Finke River, an antecedent stream that has maintained its course through the MacDonnell Ranges for over 300 million years.
• 08 May 2026The Vertical Sea: The Deep Roots of UluruAn exploration of the tectonic forces and sedimentary history that created Uluru, the Red Centre's massive arkose monolith.
• 08 May 2026The Skeletons of the Sun Coast: The Glass House MountainsAn exploration of the Glass House Mountains, the 25-million-year-old volcanic skeletons left behind by Australia's northward drift over a mantle hotspot.
• 08 May 2026The Buckling of the Center: The Alice Springs OrogenyExplore the Alice Springs Orogeny, the 150-million-year tectonic collision that created the iconic ridges of the MacDonnell Ranges.