Mesozoic Sedimentary and Volcanic Rocks from the Northern Exmouth Plateau

Geoscience Australia Data provides a dataset of geological samples dredged from the northern Exmouth Plateau margin. The data includes detailed petrography and microfacies analysis, defining seven major lithofacies associations from the Late Triassic to the Cainozoic. Samples were collected by research vessels R. V. Sonne and R. V. Rig Seismic in water depths between 2000 and 5600 meters.

Use Cases

• Classifying Late Triassic to Callovian carbonate microfacies based on the 14 defined types.
• Modeling the paleogeographic evolution of the margin based on described lithofacies associations.
• Correlating shallow water carbonate facies with coeval deposits in the Alps and Mediterranean region.
• Studying diagenetic transformations involving silica, silicates, carbonates, and phosphates.

Strengths

• Analysis is based on samples from a significant depth range (2000-5600 m).
• Defines seven major lithofacies associations and 14 microfacies types.
• Provides temporal coverage from the Late Triassic to the Cainozoic.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data files are in PDF and HTML formats, which may require extraction for computational analysis.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data

Collection Method

Dredging along seismic reflection profiles by R. V. Sonne (Cruise SO-8) and R. V. Rig Seismic (BMR Cruise 56).

Time Range

Late Triassic to Cainozoic

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-30 15:00:26.961247; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Northern margin of the Exmouth Plateau, southeastern margin of the Tethys Ocean