Geological History of the Cairns-Townsville Hinterland, North Queensland

35,000 square miles of the Cairns-Townsville hinterland were mapped from 1956 to 1959, revealing a complex geological history. The data documents a Precambrian shield and a flanking Palaeozoic geosynclinal zone containing up to 40,000 feet of sediments. The work was conducted by Geoscience Australia.

Use Cases

• Analyze the spatial distribution and extent of the 20,000 square miles of acid and 5,000 square miles of basic/ultrabasic igneous intrusions within the shield and geosynclinal zones.
• Model sediment deposition patterns using thickness data, such as the 30,000 feet of sediments in the Etheridge Geosyncline or the 15,000 feet in the Paddy's Creek area.
• Study tectonic evolution by examining described events like the uplift forming the geanticline, the creation of the Broken River Rift, and the thrusting of Archaean metamorphics.
• Reconstruct paleoenvironments from the documented shift from widespread marine to restricted freshwater sedimentation during the Devonian and Carboniferous.

Strengths

• Covers a large, defined area of 35,000 square miles in North Queensland.
• Provides specific quantitative measurements, including sediment thicknesses up to这三种,000 feet and intrusion extents in square miles.
• Documents a long temporal sequence from the Precambrian (Archaean?) through the Permian.

Limitations

• Data is derived from a specific historical mapping project (1956-1959) and may not reflect modern interpretations or discoveries.
• The original data format (HTML, PDF) is unstructured, requiring significant manual extraction for quantitative analysis.
• No tabular data or defined columns are provided, limiting immediate machine-readability.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Regional geological mapping conducted from 1956 to 1959.

Time Range

Precambrian (Archaean?) to Permian.

Freshness

null

Geography

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