Fossil plants from Allan and Carapace Nunataks, and from the upper Mill and Shackleton Glaciers, Antarctica

The structure of Shapeless Mountain, Antarctica, and its relation to Jurassic igneous activity

“…The lowest rocks consist of 130 m oflithic sandstones and fine conglomerate of early Jurassic Carapace Sandstone (Townrow 1967;Ballance & Watters 1971;Ball et al 1979). Conformably overIying these sediments is 300 m of Kirkpatrick Basalt, consisting of columnar-jointed basaltic lava flows, palagonitised hyaloelastite, basaltic pillows which foundered in wet sediments, and a 15 m thick intercalation of breccia from the Mawson Formation (Ballance & Watters 1971).…”

Mesozoic gymnosperms: megafloral changes through the Triassic–Jurassic of Eastern Gondwana

“…Dicroidium species identified from this formation by Townrow (1967b) and Rigby & Schopf (1969) support this age range. Glossopteris has not subsequently been recorded from this formation (McManus et al 2002).…”

“…Glossopteris has not subsequently been recorded from this formation (McManus et al 2002). Townrow (1967b) examined material from both the Permian and Triassic of the Allan Hills; he reported Glossopteris exclusively from Permian strata.…”

Additional field interpretation of the Jurassic sequence at Carapace Nunatak and Coombs Hills, south Victoria Land Antarctica

“…This conclusion was supported by Hall et al (1982) who suggested that Carapace Sandstone could be the distal facies of the Mawson Formation at Allan Hills. The highest beds exposed are laminated, fine-grained, silicified sediment containing conchostracans, ostracods (Ballance & Watters 1971), and coniferous plants (Plumstead in Gunn & Warren 1962, p. 115;Townrow 1967). …”

“…Subsequently, a Jurassic age for the sediment was confirmed (Townrow 1967) but a glacial origin for the diamictite was rejected and, instead a combined volcanic explosion breccia and' volcanic mudftow (lahar) was proposed (Ballance et al 1965 Grapes et al 1974;Hall et al 1982). This interpretation was based on the high content of volcanic clasts, the indications of mobile basaltic lava masses within the diamictite, and the intrusive dike-like bodies sometimes formed by the breccia.…”