The geological history of the Early Palaeozoic in eastern Australia is not known precisely. The eastern margin of the outcropping Precambrian Craton 'Tasman Line' is poorly understood. The Thomson Orogen, which underlies much of eastern Queensland, lies to the east of the Tasman Line. Basement to the Tasman Orogenic Zone is poorly understood, but knowledge of this basement is critical to our understanding to the processes that formed the eastern margin of the Precambrian craton. The Lolworth-Ravenswood Province lies to the east of the Tasman Line in northeast Queensland. A study of basement terranes in the Lolworth-Ravenswood Province will therefore provide some insights as to the nature of crust beneath this area, and therefore to the basement to the Thomson Orogen. The Fat Hen Creek Complex comprises para-authchthonous bodies of granitoid within middle to upper amphibolite facies metamorphic rocks. Data contained herein demonstrate that the composition and geochemistry of the granitoid are compatible with the generation of the granitoid by partial anatexis of the metamorphic rocks that are part of the Cape River Metamorphics. Temperature and pressure of anatexis is determined to be between 800-850OC and 5-9kb. Under these conditions, experimental data indicate that meta-pelite and meta-greywacke will produce between 5-10% melt coexisting with biotite, cordierite, garnet and plagioclase. The mineralogy of the granitoid bodies in the Fat Hen Creek Complex is consistent with partial anatexis of meta-greywacke at these temperatures and pressures. 5-10% melt is generally insufficient to allow efficient separation of melt and restite. The granitoids of the Fat Hen Creek Complex are interpreted as being a closed system with melt generated during high-grade metamorphism not separating from the residium. U/Pb dating of zircon from the Fat Hen Creek Complex indicate two distinct periods of zircon growth. The older episode occurred during the Late Cambrian to Early Ordovician. A second episode is dated as Middle Ordovician. This younger age coincides with the onset of regional compression, and may be related to exhumation of a mid-crustal layer during thrusting. The Lolworth Batholith is one of three granite batholiths in the Lolworth-Ravenswood Province. It comprises mainly muscovite-biotite granite, with smaller areas of hornblende-biotite granite to granodiorite. Sills and dykes of muscovite and garnet-muscovite leucogranite extensively intrude both of these types. The hornblende-biotite granite to granodiorite is metaluminous, with petrographic and geochemical characteristics similar to the adjacent Ravenswood Batholith. U-Pb SHRIMP ages also overlap with those from the Ravenswood Batholith. ENd(tc) values of ~-3 suggest a significant crustal contribution in the magma. Zircon populations determined using the SHRIMP suggest some inheritance from a Neoproterozoic source. The two-mica granites make up over 80% of the batholith and show little variation throughout. Aluminium Saturation indices range dominantly from 1-1.1, in keeping with the muscovite-bearing nature of the granites. U-Pb ages are significantly younger than the hornblende-biotite granitoids. ENd(tc) is ~-10, suggesting a greater role for crustal material in these granites than in the hornblende-bearing varieties. Previously, these granites were interpreted as S-types, mainly on the basis of the presence of muscovite. Low Na/Ca and Na greater than K are both considered as indicators of source compositions and both are characteristic of a mafic igneous rather than a meta-sedimentary source. Anatexis of mafic igneous rocks at temperatures less than~1000OC are found experimentally to produce peraluminous melts similar to those which produced the two-mica granites. The third major rock-type in the Lolworth Batholith is muscovite leucogranite, which occurs as sills and dykes intruding older granites and basement. The age of the leucogranite was not determined, but it has sharp contacts with the two-mica granite suggesting that the latter had cooled prior to intrusion of the former. The leucogranite is strongly peraluminous and is deemed to have been derived from anatexis of a supra-crustal (meta-sedimentary) source. The batholith is therefore deemed to comprise three different elements. The hornblende-biotite granitoids are the western extension of the adjacent Ravenswood Batholith. The two-mica granite and muscovite leucogranite are derived from different sources, but may be part of the same crustal anatexis event. During the Early Palaeozoic, the Lolworth-Ravenswood Province saw the intrusion of three granite batholiths into a basement of Late Neoproterozoic to Cambrian meta-sedimentary rocks. Also, Late Cambrian to Early Ordovician and Middle Ordovician high-grade metamorphism accompanied by partial anatexis is recorded at several sites across northeast Queensland. Although this metamorphism is restricted to these sites, they are widespread across the area suggestive of a widespread metamorphic event at these times. Similar metamorphism is recorded in the Arunta Inlier in Central Australia increasing the possible extent of this event. The geochemistry, isotopic characteristics and zircon populations of granites in the Lolworth-Ravenswood Province are used to characterise their source rocks; and thus the basement to the Province. Precambrian basement is indicated to underlie the entire province. However, the source rocks for the eastern part of the Province (Ravenswood and into the Lolworth Batholiths) are different to source rocks for the western part of the Province. Georgetown-type crust extends eastwards from the outcropping area, extending under the western Lolworth-Ravenswood Province. Late Mesoproterozoic rocks are recorded from the Cape River area adjacent to the Lolworth Batholith. They are also indicated as source-rocks for granites in the Ravenswood Batholith. Rocks of this age are characteristic of Grenvillian-age mobile belts in the United States. Their presence in north Qeensland has implications for the breakup of Rodinia, the Mesoproterozoic-age super continent that broke up during the Neoproterozoic.

The one of the most important Eras of the Earth history, i.e. Neoproterozoic (1000-542 Ma),<p>was an enigmatic period characterized by the development of the first stable long-lived ~1.1-<p>0.9 Ga Rodinia and 550-500 Ma Gondwana supercontinents, global-scale orogenic belts,<p>extreme climatic changes (cf. Snowball Earth Hypothesis), the development of microbial<p>organisms facilitating the oxidizing atmosphere and explosion of eukaryotic forms toward the<p>first animals in the terminal Proterozoic. This thesis presents a multidisciplinary study of two<p>Neoproterozoic basins, i.e. Bas-Congo and Sankuru-Mbuji-Mayi-Lomami-Lovoy, in and around the Congo Craton including sedimentology, geochemistry, diagenesis, chemostratigraphy and radiometric dating of carbonate deposits themselves.<p><p>The Mbuji-Mayi Supergroup sequence deposited in a SE-NW trending 1500 m-thick siliciclastic-carbonate intracratonic failed-rift basin, extends from the northern Katanga Province towards the centre of the Congo River Basin. The 1000 m-thick carbonate succession is related to the evolution of a marine ramp submitted to evaporation, with ‘deep’ shaly basinal and low-energy carbonate outer-ramp environments, marine biohermal midramp (MF6) and ‘very shallow’ restricted tide-dominated lagoonal inner-ramp (MF7-MF9) settings overlain by lacustrine (MF10) and sabkha (MF11) environments, periodically<p>submitted to a river water source with a possible freshwater-influence. The sequence stratigraphy shows that the sedimentation is cyclic in the inner ramp with plurimetric ‘thin’ peritidal cycles (± 4 m on average) recording a relative sea level of a maximum of 4 m, with fluctuations in the range of 1-4 m. The outer/mid ramp subtidal facies are also cyclic with ‘thick’ subtidal cycles characterized by an average thickness of ± 17 m, with a probable sealevel<p>fluctuations around 10 to 20 m. The geochemistry approach, including isotopic and major/trace and REE+Y data, allows to infer the nature of the dolomitization processes operating in each carbonate subgroup, i.e dolomitization may be attributed to evaporative reflux of groundwater or to mixing zones of freshwater lenses. The latest alteration processes occured during the uplift of the SMLL Basin. New ages, including LA-ICP-MS U-Pb laser ablation data on detrital zircon grains retrieved in the lower arenaceous-pelitic sequence (BI group), combined with carbon and strontium isotopic analyses, yielded a new depositional time frame of the Mbuji-Mayi Supergroup between 1176 and 800 Ma reinforcing the formerly suggested correlation with the Roan Group in the Katanga Province.<p><p>In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Sturtian-Marinoan interglacial period was previously related to pre-glacial carbonate-dominated shallow marine sedimentation of the Haut-Shiloango Subgroup with stromatolitic reefs at the transition between greenhouse (warm) and icehouse (cold) climate periods, commonly marked by worldwide glacigenic diamictites and cap carbonates. This thesis highlights that these deposists record as a deepening-upward evolution from storm-influenced facies in mid- and outer-ramps to deepwater environments, with emplacement of mass flow deposits in toe-of-slope settings controlled by synsedimentary faults. In absence of diagnostic glacial features, the marinoan Upper Diamictite Formation is interpreted as a continuous sediment gravity flow deposition along carbonate platform-margin slopes, which occurred along tectonically active continental margins locally influenced by altitude glaciers, developed after a rift–drift transition. The maximum depth of the deepening-upward facies is observed in the C2a member. The<p>shallowing-upward facies exibit a return of distally calcareous tempestites and semi-restricted to restricted peritidal carbonates associated with shallow lagoonal subtidal and intertidal zones submitted to detrital fluxes in the upper C2b to C3b members.<p>The geochemistry highlights (i) the existence of a δ13C-depth gradient of shallow-water and deep-water carbonates; (ii) the carbonate systems were deposited in oxic to suboxic conditions; and (iii) all samples have uniform flat non-marine shale-normalized REE+Y distributions reflecting<p>continental detrital inputs in nearshore environments, or that the nearshore sediments were<p>reworked from ’shallow’ inner to mid-ramp settings in deep-water slope and outer-ramp<p>environments, during the rift-drift transition in the basin. The pre-, syn- and post-glacial<p>carbonate systems could record a distally short-lived regional synrift freshwater-influenced<p>submarine fan derived from nearshore sediments, including gravity flow structures, which are<p>attributed to regional tectonic processes due to a sudden deepening of the basin caused by<p>differential tilting and uplifting of blocks, related to the 750-670 Ma oceanic spreading of the<p>central-southern Macaúbas Basin.<p><p>Combining sedimentology, isotopes and trace elemental geochemistry, the thesis highlights<p>that the δ13C variations in the Neoproterozoic carbonates are complex to interpret, and can be<p>related to: (i) the existence of a δ13C-depth gradient; (ii) the exchange between isotopically<p>light carbon in meteoric waters and carbonate during lithification and early diagenesis; and<p>(iii) isotopic perturbations due to regional metamorphism. Considering the possible englaciation of the Earth (Snowball Earth hypothesis), the Mbuji-Mayi Supergroup and West<p>Congolian Group seem reflected the intimate relationship between glaciations and tectonic<p>activity during the break-up of the Rodinia supercontinent, followed by the rift–drift<p>transition, and finally the pre-orogenic period on the passive continental margin. / Doctorat en Sciences / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished