The Kenn Plateau: Geological History of a Continental Fragment Off Northeast Australia

The Kenn Plateau is a submarine continental fragment covering about 140,000 km², located 500 km east of Queensland. Its geological history includes Late Triassic to Late Cretaceous basins, Late Cretaceous stretching and breakup, and subsequent Paleocene drifting with 45-degree clockwise rotation. The plateau has subsided over 2000 meters since breakup and features rift volcanics, radiolarian chalks, and reef-fringed guyots from hotspot volcanic chains.

Use Cases

• Modeling plate tectonic reconstructions based on the plateau's described rotation and movement away from Australia.
• Analyzing sedimentary basin evolution using described sequences of siliciclastic and carbonate sedimentation.
• Studying hotspot volcanism and seamount formation based on the described Tasmantid and Lord Howe volcanic chains.
• Investigating regional unconformities and compression events, such as the Middle to Late Eocene compression mentioned.

Strengths

• Description provides a detailed geological history spanning from the Late Triassic to the present day.
• Specific spatial dimensions are given, including an area of about 140,000 km² and subsidence of 2000 m or more.

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 Australian marine geology.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Time Range

Late Triassic to present

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-27 19:50:01.544811; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Kenn Plateau, Southwest Pacific, east of central Queensland, Australia