Controls on the preservation of Jurassic volcanism in the Northern Carnarvon Basin
Michael Curtis A C , Simon Holford A , Mark Bunch A and Nick Schofield BA Australian School of Petroleum, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 5000, Australia.
B Department of Earth Sciences, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, AB24 5UA, Scotland.
C Corresponding author. Email: michael.curtis@adelaide.edu.au
The APPEA Journal 61(2) 600-605 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ20137
Accepted: 4 March 2021 Published: 2 July 2021
Abstract
The Northern Carnarvon Basin (NCB) forms part of the North West Australian margin. This ‘volcanic’ rifted margin formed as Greater India rifted from the Australian continent through the Jurassic, culminating in breakup in the Early Cretaceous. Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous syn-rift intrusive magmatism spans 45 000 km2 of the western Exmouth Plateau and the Exmouth Sub-basin; however, there is little evidence of associated contemporaneous volcanic activity, with isolated late Jurassic volcanic centres present in the central Exmouth Sub-basin. The scarcity of observed volcanic centres is not typical of the extrusive components expected in such igneous provinces, where intrusive:extrusive ratios are typically 2–3:1. To address this, we have investigated the processes that led to the preservation of a volcanic centre near the Pyrenees field and the Toro Volcanic Centre (TVC). The volcanic centre near the Pyrenees field appears to have been preserved from erosion associated with the basin-wide KV unconformity by fault-related downthrow. However, the TVC, which was also affected by faulting, is located closer to the focus of regional early Cretaceous uplift along the Ningaloo Arch to the south and was partly eroded. With erosion of up to 2.6 km estimated across the Ningaloo Arch, which, in places, removed all Jurassic strata, we propose that the ‘Exmouth Volcanic Province’ was originally much larger, extending south from the TVC into the southern Exmouth Sub-basin prior to regional uplift and erosion, accounting for the ‘missing’ volume of extrusive igneous material in the NCB.
Keywords: volcanism, northern Carnarvon Basin, faulting, erosion, KV unconformity, Toro Volcanic Centre, Exmouth Volcanic Province.
Michael Curtis graduated from the University of Bristol, UK, with an MSci degree in geology in 2010. He moved to Perth shortly after to work in the West Australian mining industry. He worked as an exploration geologist with several small minerals exploration companies on nickel, copper, tungsten and potash projects. When the minerals industry collapsed in 2014, he transitioned into the petroleum industry, working at RISC Advisory as a geoscience consultant until 2017. He began his PhD at the Australian School of Petroleum and Energy Resources, University of Adelaide, in 2018, where he is currently researching the impacts of Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous magmatism on petroleum systems of the Northern Carnarvon Basin. He has won several awards for the quality of his research including the PESA Postgraduate Scholarship and an ASEG Research Foundation Grant. He is a current and active member of PESA, ASEG and GSA. |
Simon Holford is an Associate Professor and Deputy Head of School at the Australian School of Petroleum and Energy Resources, University of Adelaide. He graduated with a BSc Hons from Keele University in 2001 and a PhD from the University of Birmingham in 2006. His research interests are passive margins, deformation, uplift, magmatic evolution of rifted margins, sedimentary basins, and continental interiors and their impact on hydrocarbon exploration. He is a member of AAPG, AGU, GSA, GSL and PESA. |
Mark Bunch is a senior lecturer in petroleum geoscience at the Australian School of Petroleum and Energy Resources, University of Adelaide. He graduated with a BSc Hons from Durham University in 2000, before completing an MSc in 2001 than a PhD in 2006 at the University of Birmingham. His research interests include the application of AI and machine learning to petroleum industry problems, formation evaluation and seismic geomorphology. He is a member of AAPG, ASEG and PESA. |
Nick Schofield is a reader in igneous and petroleum geology at the University of Aberdeen. He gained his undergraduate degree in geology from the University of Edinburgh, before undertaking a PhD at the University of Birmingham investigating the emplacement of sill intrusions. He has worked and published extensively on intrusive and extrusive volcanism within sedimentary basins globally and works closely with the petroleum industry on igneous related aspects of the subsurface. |
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