Phanerozoic Geology and Mineral Resources of Western Australia

Phanerozoic rocks in onshore Western Australia, primarily sedimentary, with volcanic and intrusive rocks in limited areas. The dataset describes the geology and mineral resources of major basins including the Southern Bonaparte, Southern Carnarvon, Canning, Gunbarrel, Perth, Bremer, and Eucla Basins. It is provided by the Australian Ocean Data Network and was last updated on 2026-06-05.

Use Cases

• Modeling basin evolution based on described tectonic settings and periods of principal activity.
• Assessing mineral potential for strata-bound deposits like Mississippi Valley-type base metals mentioned in the description.
• Mapping the distribution of industrial minerals concentrated by Cainozoic weathering and lateritisation processes.
• Studying the relationship between continental breakup from Gondwana and basin initiation ages described in the text.

Strengths

• Describes specific geological basins (e.g., Canning, Perth, Eucla) and their dominant geological periods.
• Lists concrete mineralisation types and their host rocks, such as Ordovician evaporites and Eocene channel iron deposits.
• Provides a temporal framework linking basin activity to the separation of Western Australia from Gondwana.

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 solely on Western Australia.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Time Range

Phanerozoic Eon (spanning ~541 million years ago to present)

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-05 07:09:04.663990; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Onshore Western Australia