THE GREAT ARTESIAN BASIN — ORIGIN AND HISTORY

Abstract

The Great Artesian Basin, occupying an area of nearly 700,000 square miles in eastern Australia, is a sedimentary basin which was initiated late in the Triassic period. Less than 9,000 feet of predominantly non-marine clastics make up the Great Artesian Sequence of Jurassic-Cretaceous age. This sequence, which includes one Lower Cretaceous marine interval, was deposited over an eroded surface of sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous rocks of Triassic to Precambrian age between the Hunter-Bowen orogenic belt and the Australian Shield. Three, possibly four, primary dynamic basins are present within the limits of the Great Artesian Basin. One is the Surat Basin, two lie in the region known as the Eromanga Basin, and a fourth is probably present under the south-eastern Gulf of Carpentaria.