Scouting craton’s edge in paleo-Pacific Gondwana

• Main Authors: Carol A. Finn, John W. Goodge, Detlef Damaske, C. Mark Fanning
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antarctic; Miller Range; Pacific; Wilkes Land; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.133.5310; http://www.d.umn.edu/~jgoodge/docs/Finn_ISAES9.pdf

The geology of the ice-covered interior of the East Antarctic shield is completely unknown; inferences about its composition and history are based on extrapolating scant outcrops from the coast inland. Although the shield is clearly composite in nature, a large part of its interior has been represented by a single Precambrian block—termed the Mawson block—that includes the Archean-Mesoproterozoic Gawler and Curnamona cratons of Australia. In Australia, the Mawson block is bounded on the east by Neoproterozoic sedimentary rocks and the superimposed early Paleozoic Delamerian Orogen, marked by curvilinear belts of arc plutons, and on the west by the unexposed Coompana block and Mesoproterozoic Albany-Fraser mobile belt. In Antarctica, these crustal elements are inferred to extend across Wilkes Land and south to the Miller Range region. Aero- and satellite magnetic data provide a means to see through the ice, helping to elucidate the broad composition of the shield. Rocks of the Mawson block in Australia produce distinctive magnetic anomalies; Paleoproterozoic granites and Meso- to Neoproterozoic mafic igneous rocks are associated with highamplitude, broad-wavelength positive aero- and satellite-magnetic anomalies. The same types of magnetic anomalies can be traced to ice-covered Wilkes Land, Antarctica, and are interpreted to signify