The biostratigraphic and palaeoenvironmental significance of the late middle jurassic-early late cretaceous palynology of the Great Australian Bight Region

• Main Author: Wagstaff, Barbara E.
• Format: Thesis
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2016
• Subjects: Geology not elsewhere classified; 1991; monash:173200; Biostratigraphy; Geology; thesis(doctorate); 1959.1/1282959; ethesis-20161012-100947; Palynology; Great Australian Bight; Restricted access; Antarc*; Antarctica
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.4225/03/5844fa9ae1832; https://figshare.com/articles/thesis/The_biostratigraphic_and_palaeoenvironmental_significance_of_the_late_middle_jurassic-early_late_cretaceous_palynology_of_the_Great_Australian_Bight_Region/4276076

The late Middle Jurassic to early Late Cretaceous non-marine and marine sediments in the Great Australian Bight region were deposited during initial rifting between Australia and Antarctica. These sediments have been drilled and logged in Echidna-1 and Platypus-1 in the Duntroon Embayment. Potoroo-1 on the northernmost margin of the Great Australian Bight Basin, and Jerboa-1 in the Eyre Sub-basin. In these logged wells is recorded a conformable sequence through the Murospora florida, Retitriletes watherooensis, Cicatricosisporites australiensis, Foraminisporis wonthaggiensis and Cyclosporites hughesii spore-pollen Zones. The Coptospora paradoxa spore-pollen Zone is present in Platypus-1 and Potoroo-1, and three wells(Jerboa-1, Platypus-1, Potoroo-1) include the Phimopollenites pannosus and Appendicisporites distocarinatus spore-pollen Zones. In these three zones, dinoflagellates represent the Canninginopsis denticulata, Pseudoceratium ludbrookiae and Diconodinium multispinum Zones. The palynological zonation of the wells in this study assumes that the first appearance of certain spore-pollen species in the Great Australian Bight region were reliable, in the sense that they corresponded with those elsewhere in the continent as summarised in Helby et al. (1987). The ages of these first appearance datums have been critically re-evaluated to allow correlation of the wells with the standard geological time scale. The age control established by using palynological information suggests that depositional history of the Great Australian Bight region commenced in the Callovian, and this sequence of non-marine sedimentation continued without interference through until the early Aptian. Albian marine sedimentation (recorded in Jerboa-1 and Potoroo-1) most probably relates to a major marine transgression in the Eucla Basin. In Platypus-1 age equivalent sediments are non-marine. Cenomanian marine sediments indicate a marine transgression that probably encroached from the west of the continent following the separation of ...