Western Australia's Grant Range in the Canning Basin contains glacially grooved surfaces in Late Palaeozoic Grant Group rocks. The orientation of grooves and sedimentary structures indicate ice motion from the south-southeast, while pebbles of banded iron formation suggest ice sheets originated in the Pilbara Block and extended 400 km. These surfaces confirm the existence of large continental ice sheets in Western Australia during the Late Palaeozoic glaciation.
Use Cases
- Reconstructing palaeo-ice sheet extent based on groove orientation data.
- Analyzing glacial sediment provenance based on banded iron formation pebbles.
- Modeling grounding line dynamics of ice shelves based on facies geometry.
- Mapping Late Palaeozoic glaciation in Western Australia based on confirmed surface features.
Strengths
- Description provides a specific geographic scope: Grant Range, Canning Basin, Fitzroy Trough.
- Description includes a concrete distance measurement: ice extended 400 km.
- Description identifies a specific geological period: Late Palaeozoic.
Limitations
- Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
- Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
- Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to data_gov_au.
Provenance
- Source
- Australian Ocean Data Network
- Time Range
- Late Palaeozoic
- Freshness
- Last updated 2026-04-16 14:33:16.723863; freshness should be verified.
- Geography
- Grant Range, Grant Group, Canning Basin, Fitzroy Trough, Pilbara Block, Western Australia