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II II II II II - Geoscience Australia

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evidence to show whether or not the ice in the southern Canning Basin was grounded<br />

all the way, or formed a floating shelf on marine water. The glacigene deposits along<br />

the southern Canning margin are ice retreat sequences, post-dating the maximum<br />

advance. It is even possible that during the coldest stadia the ice may have extended<br />

across to the Kimberley and Stuart Blocks, but it is more likely that at such times a<br />

small transient ice cap and valley glaciers existed in these areas. Ice-rafted debris was<br />

also dropped into the Bonaparte Basin, either from icebergs or seasonal ice.<br />

Also part of the great western ice sheet, the central <strong>Australia</strong>n ice centre radiated ice<br />

southwesterly into the Officer Basin, northerly near Lake Mackay, and southeasterly<br />

into the Pedirka Basin, the last direction being inferred from the source of transported<br />

clast lithologies. The northerly and easterly extent of the ice is unknown, but the<br />

minimum area glaciated would have included the Musgrave Block, and the region<br />

uplifted during the Carboniferous Alice Springs Orogeny and still forming highlands in<br />

the Early Permian. In the Officer Basin, opposing ice flows from the Yilgarn and<br />

central <strong>Australia</strong>n centres converged, and presumably were deflected to the north and<br />

south. An erosional high along the eastern side of the Pedirka Basin shed detritus<br />

westward, and may have supported a transient ice cover during the coldest stadia, to<br />

connect the great western and southern ice sheets.<br />

The South <strong>Australia</strong>n portion of the southern ice sheet formed an irregular lobe with<br />

apparently no radial flow directions. Tillite on the western side of the Peake and<br />

Denison Ranges, along the margin of the Boorthanna Trough of the Arckaringa Basin,<br />

suggests that ice debouched off the ranges directly into the sea. There it dumped its<br />

load of till into the water of the fault-bounded trough, to be deposited as turbidites<br />

(Townsend, 1976). A narrow ice shelf along the shore was likely. Diamictite in the<br />

Wa!lira and Phillipson Troughs of the basin imply an ice shelf there also, fed from the<br />

Gawler Craton to the south. The glaciofluvial sediments of the southern Cooper Basin<br />

(Williams & Wild, 1984a) must have been supplied by glaciers on the basin edge, but<br />

the only tillite known occurs in bores near the western margin. This western area also<br />

contains lacustrine facies, and paraglacial eolianites deposited as dunes by catabatic<br />

winds coming off the ice (Williams & others, 1985). Early Permian (280 Ma) fission<br />

track ages from the Broken Hill Block indicate uplift of the crust, possibly as a result<br />

of isostatic adjustment after extensive glacial erosion (Stevens, 1986). Alternatively,<br />

uplift may have come first, and aided glacial development on the higher topography.<br />

Drilling in the Murray infra-basinal area (O'Brien, 1986a) indicates that floating ice did<br />

not extend far into this basin, and that the volume of debris shaved off the Broken Hill<br />

Block was not unusually great. Southwest of Adelaide, striations on glacial pavements<br />

mostly display northerly and northwesterly ice movement, but in the Inman Valley,<br />

basement topography deflected ice flow towards the west. There are no glacials on<br />

the Yorke Peninsula, and the marine sediments there probably record post-glacial<br />

deposition near the end of the time slice. The PoIda Basin sediments contain erratics<br />

or dropstones, and are of uncertain but possibly glaciolacustrine facies.<br />

The ice lobe over Victoria again shows no evidence of having been an independant<br />

ice centre, as all ice directions are northerly. Subsurface data from the Murray infrabasinal<br />

area (O'Brien, 1986a) indicates that floating ice did not extend far north. The<br />

limit of ice cover to the northeast is unknown; it may have flowed against the southern<br />

part of the highlands uplifted by the Carboniferous Kanimblan Orogeny (as shown on<br />

38

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