Geological History of the Cairns-Townsville Hinterland, North Queensland, 1956-1959

A 1956-1959 geological mapping project covering 35,000 square miles of the Cairns-Townsville hinterland in North Queensland, conducted by Geoscience Australia Data. The history describes a Precambrian shield and a Palaeozoic geosynclinal zone containing up to 40,000 feet of sediments, intruded by extensive igneous rocks. It details events from the Archaean? to the late Carboniferous, including sediment deposition, metamorphism, and tectonic uplift.

Use Cases

• Modeling regional tectonic evolution based on described shield and geosyncline structures.
• Analyzing sediment deposition patterns based on described thicknesses of up to 40,000 feet.
• Studying igneous intrusion events based on the described 20,000 square miles of acid and 5,000 square miles of basic/ultrabasic rocks.
• Investigating Precambrian metamorphic processes based on described granulite, amphibolite, and migmatite formations.

Strengths

• Covers a large, defined area of 35,000 square miles.
• Provides detailed quantitative measurements, such as sediment thicknesses of 30,000 and 40,000 feet.
• Describes a long temporal sequence from the Precambrian (Archaean?) to the late Carboniferous.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Data is presented as PDF/HTML reports, which may require extraction for computational analysis.
• Freshness should be verified; the last update date is 2026-04-20, but the core data is from a 1956-1959 survey.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Regional geological mapping project.

Time Range

Precambrian (Archaean?) to late Carboniferous; mapping conducted 1956-1959.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-20 01:25:48.158600; core data from 1956-1959 survey.

Geography

Cairns-Townsville hinterland, North Queensland, Australia (35,000 square miles).