Mount Isa Basin Architecture and Crustal Evolution Field Guide, 1800-1600 Ma

Mount Isa in northern Australia preserves a 200-million-year geological record from 1800 to 1600 million years ago. This field guide from Geoscience Australia describes the region's intracontinental rifting, basin formation, and magmatic evolution leading to the breakup of the Nuna supercontinent. The record is documented through a combination of mine visits and outcrop geology.

Use Cases

• Modeling basin evolution based on the described three stacked sedimentary basins (Leichhardt, Calvert, Isa superbasins)
• Analyzing crustal thinning and magmatic evolution based on the transition from continental to oceanic tholeiites described
• Studying the timing of tectonic events based on the 200 Myr record and major unconformities mentioned
• Correlating sedimentary facies changes based on the described progression from fluviatile-lacustrine to fully marine conditions

Strengths

• Covers a specific 200-million-year geological timeframe (1800-1600 Ma)
• Describes a detailed sequence of three major sedimentary basins separated by unconformities
• Links basin evolution to specific magmatic and metamorphic processes

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment
• Data is presented as a field guide (PDF/HTML/ZIP), which may require manual extraction for computational analysis

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Field observations and geological synthesis from mine visits and outcrop geology.

Time Range

1800 to 1600 million years ago (Paleoproterozoic to earliest Mesoproterozoic)

Freshness

Last updated 2026-03-25 18:29:07.724480; freshness should be verified

Geography

Mount Isa region, northern Australia