Cretaceous Sedimentary Rocks of the Eromanga and Surat Basins, Eastern Australia

1,500,000 km^2 of eastern Australia is underlain by Cretaceous sedimentary rocks from the Eromanga and Surat Basins. The Australian Ocean Data Network provides this geological description, which details depositional environments ranging from freshwater to shallow marine over about 20 million years. Up to 2000 meters of Cretaceous sediment is preserved in the Eromanga Basin.

Use Cases

• Modeling epicontinental sea depositional environments based on described marine and paralic sequences.
• Analyzing sediment provenance shifts from quartz-rich to quartz-poor sequences over the Cretaceous period.
• Studying transgressive-regressive cycles based on the described Aptian and Albian sea-level changes.
• Comparing ancient basin geology to modern analogues like the Baltic Sea, as suggested in the description.

Strengths

• Describes a vast geographic area covering 1,500,000 km^2.
• Provides specific sediment thickness details, such as 2000 m preserved in the Eromanga Basin.
• Outlines a detailed temporal framework spanning about 20 million years.

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, focusing on two Australian basins.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Time Range

Cretaceous period (spanning about 20 million years)

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-27 18:03:25.605256; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Eromanga and Surat Basins, eastern Australia