Publication Name: The Canning Basin, W.A.
Authors: A.N. Yeates, D.L. Gibson, R.R. Towner and R.W.A. Crowe
Date Published: December 1984
Number of Pages: 44
Reference Type: Book Section
Abstract:
The 430,000 sq. km onshore segment of the Phanerozoic Canning Basin lies mainly within the Great Sandy and Gibson Deserts. Reconnaissance mapping combined with subsurface data reveals that the basin contains up to 18 km of shallow marine, paralic and terrestrial deposits.Its history, which began in the Early Ordovician and was largely completed by the Early Cretaceous, is briefly described in terms of the following seven selected intervals of sedimentological significance: Early to Middle Ordovician; Late Silurian(?) to Early Devonian; Middle Devonian to Early Carboniferous; Late Carboniferous
to Late Permian; Early to Middle Triassic; Early Jurassic to Early Cretaceous, and Cainozoic. Up to Middle Triassic times, sedimentation occurred in depocentres that mainly trend northwest. However, the Jurassic-Cretaceous sequence relates to the break-up of Gondwanaland, and to a global Early Cretaceous rise in sea level.
The Cainozoic deposits reveal a history of restricted subsidence and limited deposition, as well as weathering, erosion and minor sea-level fluctuations related to climatic changes. Present-day hard-rock landforms have been influenced by earlier geological events.