New data on the Late Paleozoic Ice Age glaciomarine successions from Tasmania (SE Australia)

Abstract

The Late Paleozoic Ice Age (LPIA) is one of the coldest periods in Earth history, and led to the diachronous development of widespread ice centers across Gondwana in the Carboniferous and Permian. In Tasmanian Basin, located between northern Victoria Land (Antarctica) and Australia, the lowermost part of the Parmeener Supergroup (Late Carboniferous to Triassic), consisting of the Wynyard Tillite and its correlatives (Truro and Stockers tillites), recorded LPIA glacial sedimentation linked with ice covers that developed in the region. We carried out a detailed facies analysis of two drillcores which recovered glaciogenic sequences deposited in the Tasmanian Basin. Facies associations vary from possibly sub-glacial or ice-contact to ice-distal. Diamictite is the most common facies and its deposition is driven both by gravity and sediment remobilization processes and suspension settling with ice rafted debris accumulation. Mudstone layers, with and without dropstones, are interposed between diamictite intervals, recording ice-distal to non-glacial conditions respectively. Facies associations are indicative of subaqueous deposition in glaciomarine environment. The glacial sequence stratigraphy approach was applied and glacial system tracts and bounding surfaces, which define glacial sequences, were identified. The stacking pattern of the facies associations allow us to demonstrate that the glacial sequences in the Tasmanian Basin recorded different phases of advance and retreat of the glacial front into the basin, at about the end of the main glacial phase.