The Balickera section of the Carboniferous Kuttung Facies, New South Wales

[1] Visean ignimbrites from three fault-bounded blocks within the southern Tamworth Belt, southern New England Orogen, Australia, retain a prefolding high-temperature component of remanence, carried mainly by magnetite. Paleomagnetic data indicate that the southern Tamworth Belt occupied low to moderate paleolatitudes during the early Carboniferous. Normal and reversed polarities with low to moderate inclinations suggest that the steep, reverse polarity latest Carboniferous to earliest Permian overprint is absent from the high-temperature component data set. The mean characteristic remanence direction of three early to middle Visean ignimbrite flows (32 sites) from the Rouchel block is: declination (dec) = 154.2°and inclination (inc) = 38.8°(a 95 = 12.5°; k = 98.8), which corresponds to a paleo south pole at latitude 64.9°S, longitude 258.1°E (dp = 5.5°; dm = 9.2°, where dp is the angular length of the semiaxis of the ellipse of confidence of the calculated paleopole that lies along the pole to site great circle, and dm is the angular length of the semiaxis perpendicular to dp). Six middle to late Visean ignimbrite flows (29 sites) from the Gresford block retain a mean remanence of dec = 159.6°and inc = 54.1°( a 95 = 13.7°; k = 24.7), corresponding to a paleo south pole at latitude 72.8°S, longitude 228.4°E (dp = 13.4°; dm = 19.2°). Despite widespread overprinting throughout much of the Myall block, reliable information was obtained from three late Visean ignimbrite flows (five sites), with a mean direction of dec = 118.1°and inc = 42.5°(a 95 = 12.0°; k = 41.6), from which a paleo south pole of latitude 35.7°S, longitude 233.4°E (dp = 9.1°; dm = 14.7°) is calculated. The calculated paleo south poles do not fall on the early Carboniferous segment of the published apparent polar wander path for Australia and suggest that the southern Tamworth Belt has undergone significant counter-clockwise rotation relative to cratonic Australia. Inferred rotations for the Rouchel, Gresford, and Myall blocks are approximately 80°, 80°, and 120°, respectively. Stratigraphic and geological evidence suggest rotation took place between the mid-Namurian and latest Carboniferous and is thought to have resulted from sinistral strike-slip during compression at the eastern margin of Australia.

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Intraspecific variation and palaeogeographic dispersal of the Mississippian miosporeReticulatisporites magnidictyusPlayford & Helby, 1968

Playford

2017

Palynology

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Renewed study of an Australian Mississippian-age palynoflorathe Grandispora maculosa zonal assemblage from the Mount Johnstone/Italia Road Formation (Hunter Valley, New South Wales)reveals significant morphological variation in some of its key miospore componentsin particular Reticulatisporites magnidictyus, the subject of the present account. Detailed microscopy of numerous topotypic specimens of this species, originally described in 1968, results in its formal emendation; this takes particular account of the hitherto unrecognised presence of a proximo-apical prominence about the confluence of the laesurae. The G. maculosa palynoflora, with its constituent R. magnidictyus, has been reported from within a ca. 30-45 S palaeolatitudinal belt, at numerous Western, Eastern, and Northern Gondwanan locations in strata of middle Visean-early Serpukhovian age, but with a possible extension into the Early Pennsylvanian (Bashkirian). Consequently, R. magnidictyus is one of a very limited group of distinctive miospore species that facilitate long-distance chronostratigraphic correlation within the supercontinent.

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The Balickera section of the Carboniferous Kuttung Facies, New South Wales

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Paleomagnetic results indicate pre‐Permian counter‐clockwise rotation of the southern Tamworth Belt, southern New England Orogen, Australia

Intraspecific variation and palaeogeographic dispersal of the Mississippian miosporeReticulatisporites magnidictyusPlayford & Helby, 1968

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