Transcontinental Cainozoic paleovalleys of Western Australia

Brocard, Gilles; Ding, Xuesong; Salles, Tristan; Zahirovic, Sabin; Rey, Patrice; Müller, Dietmar

doi:10.1071/aseg2018abp049

Cited by 3 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Interestingly, the DDN streamflow flows N-NE, but the configuration of the palaeovalleys suggest that the original drainage was westward across a former divide. This is also supported by the overlap into the DDN of a westward-draining palaeovalley system that eventually exits to the North West Shelf (Brocard et al, 2017;English et al, 2012) (Figure 12). This suggests three possible basin closure scenarios: passive closure, resulting from decreased precipitation lowering streamflow enough so that pre-existing basement structure served to block throughflowing drainage; active closure resulting from large wavelength tectonic movements, such as downwarping of basins (Magee, 2009), or the back-tilting of the Australian continent to the south described by Sandiford et al (2009), which combined with decreased precipitation to behead formerly north and northwest-flowing drainages; or a combination of passive and active closure scenarios.…”

Section: Victoria River Ddn Australiamentioning

confidence: 85%

“…One of the most striking features of the DDN analysis was the conformance of the derived streamflow to two groupings of palaeovalleys which are very obvious in the shaded DEMs, but almost undistinguishable in remote imagery. The higher, southern palaeovalley system has been noted by many researchers (Brocard et al, 2017;English, 2016;English et al, 2012;Magee, 2009;Mernagh et al, 2016;Sandiford et al, 2009). This system is included in a GIS database of palaeovalleys created by Geoscience Australia and encompasses the DDN streamflows within the five highest sub-DDNs (Figure 12).…”

Section: Victoria River Ddn Australiamentioning

confidence: 93%

“…English et al (2012) used pollen in sediments and stratigraphic correlation to date basal palaeovalley sediments to the Eocene, which would provide a maximum age for drainage fragmentation. Brocard et al (2017) estimate that aridification was well advanced in Western Australia well before the Quaternary, and possibly as early as the Middle Miocene. Wilford (2000) dated diversion of palaeovalleys in the Tanami area to the mid-Miocene as well.…”

Section: Victoria River Ddn Australiamentioning

confidence: 94%

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Modeling the connections between internally and externally drained basins using GIS, Google Earth©, and remote sensing

Lee

2018

Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment

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The development of internal drainage is intimately tied to the tectonic and climatic history of an area, but research into the exact causes and processes of internal drainage is constrained by the ability to accurately delineate both internally and externally draining watersheds. Until recently, existing global catalogs of internally drained regions were either hand-drawn or based upon digital elevation models whose resolution is much lower than those currently available. Here, the World Wildlife Fund’s HydroBASINS dataset is analyzed in a GIS program to identify points of former connectivity between endorheic and exorheic basins, to identify possible palaeolakes and palaeo-distributary channels, and to quantify on a global basis the extent of area lost to internal drainage for 101 large watersheds. The results have been made available in Google Earth© KMZ files, and a sample workflow is presented which uses the data to approximate the relative importance of tectonic vs climatic factors in initiating endorheism. As an example of how the dataset and workflow can be used, the drainage history is modeled for endorheic watersheds within two very different tectonic regimes, the Afar region of northeastern Africa and the Northern Territory of Australia. The methodology is readily adaptable to other endorheic basins and offers the ability to create drainage history models which can help in research areas such as climate change investigations and groundwater and economic mineral prospecting.

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Section: Victoria River Ddn Australiamentioning

confidence: 85%

Section: Victoria River Ddn Australiamentioning

confidence: 93%

Section: Victoria River Ddn Australiamentioning

confidence: 94%

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Modeling the connections between internally and externally drained basins using GIS, Google Earth©, and remote sensing

Lee

2018

Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment

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“…These are to be tackled, ideally, in future work. But here we focus on the networks of (paleo) rivers and marine basins that were active during the Cenozoic, when sea levels and rainfall were higher [40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50]. Some of these paleo-systems are now the focus of heavy mineral sand and valley-calcrete-uranium exploration [43,44,48].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Satellite Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer Mineral Maps of Australia Unmixed of Their Green and Dry Vegetation Components: Implications for Mapping (Paleo) Sediment Erosion–Transport–Deposition Processes

Cudahy,

Cudahy

2024

Remote Sensing

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The 2012 satellite ASTER geoscience maps of Australia were designed to provide public, web-accessible, and spatially comprehensive surface mineralogy for improved mapping and solutions to geoscience challenges. However, a number of the 2012 products were clearly compromised by variable green and/or dry vegetation cover. Here, we show a strategy to first estimate and then unmix the contributions of both these vegetation components to leave, as residual, the target surface mineralogy. The success of this unmixing process is validated by (i) visual suppression/removal of the regional climate and/or local fire-scar vegetation patterns; and (ii) pixel values more closely matching field sample data. In this process, we also found that the 2012 spectral indices used to gauge the AlOH content, AlOH composition, and water content can be improved. The updated (new indices and vegetation unmixed) maps reveal new geoscience information, including: (i) regional “wet” and “dry” zones that appear to express “deep” geological characters often expressed through thick regolith cover, with one zone over the Yilgarn Craton spatially anti-correlated with Archaean gold deposits; (ii) a ~1000 km wide circular feature over the Lake Eyre region defined by a rim of abundant “muscovite” that appears to coincide with opal deposits; (iii) a N–S zonation across the western half of the continent defined by abundant muscovite in the south and kaolinite in the north, which appears to reflect opposing E ↔ W aeolian sediment transport directions across the high-pressure belt; (iv) various paleo-drainage networks, including those over aeolian sand covered the “lowlands” of the Canning Basin, which are characterized by low AlOH content, as well as those over eroding “uplands”, such as the Yilgarn Craton, which have complicated compositional patterns; and (v) a chronological history of Miocene barrier shorelines, back-beach lagoons, and alluvial fans across the Eucla Basin, which, to date, had proved elusive to map using other techniques, with potential implications for heavy mineral sand exploration. Here, we explore the latter three issues.

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Surface Uplift Due To Time‐Varying Elastic Thickness in Continental Interiors

Ruetenik,

Jansen,

Sandiford

2024

Geophysical Research Letters

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If, as previously hypothesized, the effective elastic response of the lithosphere is sensitive to the imposed stress regime, then it may vary in time and produce distinctive geomorphic responses. Such effects will be at their most crucial in landscapes of low relief. Motivated by the existence of numerous small endorheic (internally‐drained) basins in central Australia, we examine the influence of changing elastic response in the presence of large embedded loads in the lithosphere underlying stable continental interiors. Focusing on the western Lake Eyre Basin and adjoining Lake Lewis basin—an area with a close correlation between drainage pattern and extreme Bouguer gravity anomalies—we devise a set of numerical simulations that incorporate the flexural response to time‐transient horizontal stresses. The simulations demonstrate that transient changes in the effective elastic thickness can drive topographic changes in low‐relief landscapes, including drainage capture and the development of endorheic basins, consistent with field observations.

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Transcontinental Cainozoic paleovalleys of Western Australia

Cited by 3 publications

References 22 publications

Modeling the connections between internally and externally drained basins using GIS, Google Earth©, and remote sensing

Modeling the connections between internally and externally drained basins using GIS, Google Earth©, and remote sensing

Satellite Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer Mineral Maps of Australia Unmixed of Their Green and Dry Vegetation Components: Implications for Mapping (Paleo) Sediment Erosion–Transport–Deposition Processes

Surface Uplift Due To Time‐Varying Elastic Thickness in Continental Interiors

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