Keene Basalt, northwest Officer Basin, Western Australia: tectonostratigraphic setting and implications for possible submarine mineralisation

Abstract

GSWA Lancer 1, drilled in the northwest Officer Basin, intersected 49 m of tholeiitic basalt lava flows between depths of 527 and 576 m. These lavas have been named the Keene Basalt and were erupted during deposition of the shallow-marine Kanpa Formation, a mixed carbonate – siliciclastic succession in the Neoproterozoic Buldya Group. No direct dating of the Keene Basalt has been undertaken. Maximum depositional age constraints for the enclosing Kanpa Formation are provided by youngest concordant detrital zircon ages of 779±6 Ma for sandstone 19 m below the basalt, and 725±11 Ma for sandstone at the top of the Kanpa Formation in another drillhole. Correlation of the Kanpa Formation with the Burra Group of the Adelaide Rift Complex on palaeontological and chemostratigraphic grounds suggests an age older than 700 Ma. Limited geochemical data indicate that the Keene Basalt is of continental origin and shows a close similarity to mafic dykes near Mingary in South Australia. Petrographic and XRD analyses show that the Keene Basalt has been hydrothermally altered by interaction with seawater, and locally contains disseminated sulfides. Massive and disseminated sulfide mineralisation, similar to that of submarine systems, may exist in this tectonostratigraphic setting in the northwest Officer Basin.