Abstract

Seaward of a wide (300 km) shelf in the north and a narrow (50–100 km) shelf in the south, the 3,000-km-long western margin of Australia is dominated by marginal plateaus. Tilt northern Scott and Exmouth Plateaus are terraces that lie between an upper low-gradient part of the slope and a lower steeper part, and the southern Wallaby Plateaus and the Naturaliste Plateau are separated from the slope by a trough 3–4 km deep. The entire margin has a near-surface structure of an inshore or coastal graben, filled mainly with about 10 km of Permian and Mesozoic nonmarine and shallow marine detrital sediments and minor alkaline volcanics, flanked oceanward by a rise that is highest structurally near the outer edge of the slope or plateau. Deep-sea drilling dates the sea floor off the margin as Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous.

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