Structural history of the Greenvale Province, north Queensland: Early Palaeozoic extension and convergence on the Pacific margin of Gondwana

Authors

Christopher L. Fergusson, University of WollongongFollow
R A Henderson, James Cook University
I. W. Withnall, Dept.of Natural Resources and Mines, Qld.
C M Fanning, Australian National University

RIS ID

18677

Publication Details

Fergusson, C. L., Henderson, R., Withnall, I. and Fanning, C. (2007). Structural history of the Greenvale Province, north Queensland: Early Palaeozoic extension and convergence on the Pacific margin of Gondwana. Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, 54 (4), 573-595.

Abstract

The southeastern Georgetown Inlier (Greenvale Province) consists of Early Palaeozoic metamorphic rocks in fault contact along the Lynd Mylonite Zone with the Palaeoproterozoic to Mesoproterozoic craton of northeastern Australia. It has a central assemblage of metamorphosed silicic volcanic and sedimentary rocks considered equivalent to the Late Cambrian to Early Ordovician Seventy Mile Range Group that developed in an extensional backarc in the Charters Towers Province to the southeast. In the western part of the Greenvale Province the Oasis Metamorphics has a U-Pb zircon SHRIMP metamorphic age of 476 ± 5 Ma and is intruded by the granodioritic Lynwater Complex with U-Pb zircon ages of 486 ± 5 Ma and 477 ± 6 Ma. These ages are consistent with these rocks forming basement and intrusive equivalents to the extensional volcanic basin. Existing geochronological constraints on the Halls Reward domain, located at the eastern margin of the province, are consistent with it being basement to the extensional basin. Several domains are recognised in the Greenvale Province with either dominantly steep or low to moderate dips of the main foliation and each experienced multiple deformation with locally up to four overprinting structural phases. Steepening of foliation in several of the domains is attributed to contractional deformation in the Early Silurian that is inferred to have overprinted low-angle foliation developed during extensional tectonics in the backarc setting. Contractional deformation related to the Early Silurian Benambran Orogeny is considered responsible for multiple deformation in the Greenvale Province and reactivation of domain-bounding faults.