Comment on “Evidence for multiphase deformation in the Archaean basal Warrawoona group in the Marble Bar area, East Pilbara, Western Australia” by van Haaften, W.M., White, S.H., 1998: Precambrian Research 88, 53–66

Abstract

van Haaften and White (1998) presented kine-matic data from shear zones within the TalgaTalga Anticline of the Marble Bar belt to in-voke a regional thrust-accretion tectonic originfor the East Pilbara Craton. By examination ofsmall-scale, local faults, they inferred five phasesof regional deformation, of which an early ESE-directed thrusting event which reactivated ca.3450 Ma normal faults, and a NE-directedtransport event at Further, van Haaften and White (1998) use3300 Ma, were interpretedto be the most important. van Haaften andWhite (1998) state that a lack of radially plung-ing lineations in the Talga Talga Anticline andthe presence of thrust-sense kinematics in bed-ding-parallel shear zones indicate that the TalgaTalga Anticline could not have formed throughthe solid-state diapiric rise of the Mount EdgarBatholith as suggested by Hickman (1984) andCollins (1989). Rather, they interpret the TalgaTalga Anticline to be a thrust culminationformed as a result of three phases of east- tonorth-eastern directed crustal shortening. Theearly thrusting was interpreted to have occurredduring the accretion of a so-called ‘East Pilbaraterrain’, as originally suggested by Krapez(1993).the presence of thrusts, and a re-interpretationof the previous geochronology, to suggest thatthe volcanic stratigraphy of the Marble Bar beltrepresent an imbricate lithotectonic sequence.They conclude that ‘the Talga Talga Anticline isan unsuitable area for the type section of thelower Warrawoona Group’, that the con-