Abstract
The Quaternary beach sand of SE Australia, driven northward by southern swell, contains zircons with dominant UâPb ages of 700â500 Ma, model ages (TDMc) of 2.2 Ga to 1.0 Ga, and ĎľHf of +12 to â30, indicating a host rock type of granitoids with alkaline affinity. These properties match those of detrital zircons in the Middle Triassic (ca 240 Ma) Hawkesbury Sandstone (TDMc of 2.1 to 1.0 Ga, ĎľHf of +8 to â40, alkaline granitoids) and the Ordovician (ca 460 Ma) turbidites and ca 430 Ma S-type granitoids of the Lachlan Orogen (T2DM of 2.0 to 1.0 Ga, ĎľHf of +5 to â30), all of which are identified as proximal provenances. Superimposed are the ca 400 Ma zircons in beaches in the south backed by the 420â375 Ma I-type Bega Batholith, and ca 350 Ma and ca 250 Ma zircons in the north backed by the New England Orogen. The Ordovician turbidites, part of a deep-sea super-fan, were fed by the detritus of the exhumed 700â500 Ma Transgondwanan Supermountains atop the East AfricanâAntarctic Orogen. At the same time, the ancestral Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains of East Antarctica probably contributed a subsidiary fan of 700â500 Ma sediment. Primary zircons aged 600â500 Ma in igneous and metamorphic rocks in Australia and the ancestral Transantarctic Mountains are minor contributors of the Australian sediments. The properties of the 700â500 Ma primary zircons in the East AfricanâAntarctic Orogen are traceable through the first-cycle Ordovician turbidite and intruding second-cycle granite, and younger sediment, such as the third-cycle Triassic Hawkesbury Sandstone and the third-cycle beach sand. The sand at the northern terminus of the coastal system off Fraser Island spills over the shelf edge into the Tasman Abyssal Plain to reflect in miniature the deep-sea depositional environment of the Ordovician.
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