Insights into the continental structure of southeast Australia and Tasmania from passive seismic and magnetic datasets

Abstract

The continental crust of southeast Australia is a complex and highly prospective area. Southeast Australia comprises the Delamerian and Lachlan Orogenies which, together with the Eastern Tasmania Terrane, are understood to have Phanerozoic basement. In contrast, the Western Tasmanian Terrane comprises areas of exposed Neoproterozoic basement which were assembled along the proto-Pacific margin of East Gondwana. In this study, the crustal structure across southeast Australia and Tasmania is considered using seismic and aeromagnetic methods. We use previous passive seismic results and present a new analysis of magnetic data. The Curie temperature, the temperature at which magnetic rocks lose their magnetisation, is investigated using spectral analysis of aeromagnetic data and the Curie point depth (CPD) is consequently determined. CPD is compared to the depth of the seismic Moho discontinuity throughout the study area. The Moho depth and newly calculated CPD throughout the study area vary from ~20 to >38 km and ~25 to >45 km, respectively. The CPD is slightly shallower than the Moho across the study area. The Delamerian and Lachlan Orogenies are underlain by a 30-35 km and ~40-50 km deep Moho respectively, while average CPD depths are ~30 and ~28 km for these regions. A relatively shallow CPD is observed in the northeast of the study area and corresponds to Cainozoic volcanism in eastern Australia. The shallow Moho beneath Tasmania supports the idea of crustal thinning during Gondwana breakup. In Tasmania, CPD increases in depth from ~21 km in the northwest to >31 km in north. This is consistent with variations in the depth of the Moho from 25 km in the northwest to 37 km in the north.