Late Artinskian–Early Kungurian (Early Permian) warming and maximum marine flooding in the East Gondwana interior rift, Timor and Western Australia, and comparisons across East Gondwana
Introduction
Phanerozoic rift basins through the interiors of ancient continents provide outstanding archives of past life and the environmental factors that influenced these records. Among the most important factors affecting the water quality and sedimentation patterns in the seas flooding these rifts were temperature and degrees of aridity and humidity in the hinterland. These factors, which interacted with eustasy and tectonic subsidence, determined the amount of precipitation, freshwater runoff and siliciclastic-sediment influx into the interior seas, turbidity, evaporation from surface waters, salinities and water stratification, and ultimately the biota.
The Early Permian (Cisuralian) was an interval of significant climate change (Schmitz and Davydov, 2012) and in east Gondwana includes evidence for melting of large continental ice sheets (Crowell and Frakes, 1971a, Crowell and Frakes, 1971b, Isbell et al., 2003, Frank et al., 2015). An almost complete stratigraphic record of this interval exists in basins that formed along the East Gondwana interior rift (Fig. 1; Harrowfield et al., 2005), originally called the “Westralian Geosyncline” by Teichert (1939) and the “Western Australian Trough” by Wopfner (1999). This interior Gondwanan record is accessible along the western passive margin of the Australian continent that resulted from much later (Middle Jurassic–Early Cretaceous) episodes of rifting leading to the opening of the Indian Ocean (Heine and Müller, 2005). The margin and its precursor Gondwanan deposits were later modified in the north by late Miocene collision with Asia (Keep and Haig, 2010, Haig, 2012).
The most accessible Cisuralian records from the East Gondwana interior rift include outcrops in Timor (Charlton et al., 2002) and in the Canning, Southern Carnarvon and northern Perth basins of Western Australia (Fig. 2; Mory, 2010, Hocking et al., 1987, Playford et al., 1976). The Timor sections have been dislocated during the chaotic late Miocene collision (Hamilton, 1979) but contain facies that accumulated in more open parts of the rift system closer to its main axis and also closer to the Paleotethys Ocean than the other basins. The Western Australian basins to the south of Timor were marginal splays off the main rift (Fig. 2) and have undergone very little deformation. Permian deposits closer to the edge of the present-day passive margin (and presumably also closer to the main axis of the Permian rift) are covered by thick Mesozoic and Cenozoic strata and are rarely reached in petroleum exploration drilling. Recent seismic profiling on the North West Shelf of Western Australia suggests significant topographic relief developed in the rift system with steep slopes and possible reef or mound development on shelf breaks (MacNeill and Marshall, 2015). Although rock records from these environments are presently out of reach, equivalent facies seem to be represented in Timor where the Permian strata were folded, faulted and uplifted on to land during the late Neogene collision.
Although the Cisuralian climate record in parts of the East Gondwana interior rift has long been subject of discussion (e.g. Maitland, 1912, Clapp, 1925, David and Sussmilch, 1931, David and Sussmilch, 1933, Teichert, 1941, Teichert, 1948, de Clarke et al., 1951, Guppy et al., 1958, Lowenstam, 1964, Condon, 1967, Crowe and Towner, 1976a, Crowe and Towner, 1976b, Dickins, 1978, Dickins, 1993, Dickins, 1996, Forman and Wales, 1981, Hocking et al., 1987, Redfern, 1991, Kennard et al., 1994, Archbold and Shi, 1995, Archbold and Shi, 1996, Lindsay, 1997, Archbold, 1998a, Archbold, 1998b, Archbold, 2000, Nicoll and Metcalfe, 1998, Eyles and Eyles, 2000, Eyles et al., 2001, Eyles et al., 2002, Eyles et al., 2003, Eyles et al., 2006, Dixon and Haig, 2004, Lever, 2004a, Lever, 2004b, Torsvik and Cocks, 2004, Gorter et al., 2008, Korte et al., 2008, Mory et al., 2008, Frank et al., 2012, Al-Hinaai and Redfern, 2015, Taboada et al., 2015), few studies have attempted to examine in detail the influence of climate along a north to south transect in the rift. Recent such analyses by us have suggested the following: (1) a global warm spike during the latest Gzhelian (latest Carboniferous) may have initiated rapid melting of ice sheets that resulted in the deposition of thick glacially-influenced successions of the lowest Permian in the Perth, Southern Carnarvon and Canning basins and reefs in Timor (Davydov et al., 2013, Davydov et al., 2014); and (2) widespread carbonate marine deposition took place during the late Sakmarian to early Artinskian, extending from Timor in the north to the northern Perth Basin in the south, indicating further warming of climate from the earlier glacial phase but suggesting only a very gradual gradient in north–south temperature along the examined length of the rift (Haig et al., 2014).
In the present paper, based on new data and a review of published information, we investigate the late Artinskian to Kungurian interval represented in marine strata of the interior rift and suggest warming from initial cold conditions to a warm peak close to the Artinskian–Kungurian boundary. We show that this was co-incident with Early Permian maximum marine flooding in the rift basins, and led to warm–temperate conditions during the rest of the Permian in lowland parts of East Gondwana. The results of the study raise questions concerning: (1) relationships between climatic changes, marine flooding in the rift basins, and tectonic subsidence; and (2) relationships between climatic changes and different rates of biotic change among different plant and animal groups.
Section snippets
Material and methods
The new material for this study (see Section 7. Appendix 1) was collected during extensive fieldwork in Timor-Leste and in the Canning, Southern Carnarvon and Perth basins. Borehole sections in the Western Australian basins were also examined. Friable mudstones were disaggregated for skeletal microfossil content, and some were digested in HF for palynomorphs, using standard techniques. Carbonate rocks were slabbed, etched in 2% HCl for 4 min, flooded with acetone when dry and overlain by acetate
Timor Gondwanan Megasequence
Within the geological chaos of Timor, a suite of uppermost Carboniferous to Middle Jurassic sedimentary units is recognized as having Gondwana affinity and is designated the “Gondwana Megasequence” (Harris et al., 1998, Harris et al., 2000, Haig et al., 2007, Haig and Bandini, 2013, Tate et al., 2015). This was deposited near the axis of the East Gondwana interior rift adjacent the Bonaparte Basin of northwest Australia as indicated, for example, by the palaeomagnetic evidence of Chamalaun
Comparison of East Gondwana palaeoclimate trends
Mississippian to Cisuralian climate records for the East Gondwana interior rift, Lhasa and Sibumasu (Fig. 26; Section 7, Appendix 24) show similar patterns that support the Early Permian reconstruction of East Gondwana shown in Fig. 1, Fig. 26. In each region, the Mississippian is represented by warm-water facies, a major depositional hiatus is present through much of the Pennsylvanian and this is followed by lowest Permian units containing diamictites and dropstones. Warming took place during
Discussion
The opening of the Indian Ocean to form the present-day western continental margin of Australia was by progressive north to south rifting that took place during an interval of 50 my from about 190 Ma (Early Jurassic) in New Guinea, 165 Ma in the Timor region, 155 Ma between Timor and Exmouth Plateau, and 135 Ma south of Exmouth Plateau (Pigram and Panggabean, 1984, Heine and Müller, 2005, Haig and Bandini, 2013). Metcalfe (2006) suggested that Lhasa rifted from Greater India during the Late
Conclusions
- 1.
Marine upper Artinskian–Kungurian deposits are recognized both in basins close to the axis of the East Gondwana interior rift and in marginal rift basins that splayed from the main rift axis. The major depocentres are in rifts that were initiated during the late Pennsylvanian. Northern basins along the main axis of the rift system have a fully marine upper Artinskian–Kungurian succession, whereas coeval deposits further south in the southern Perth Basin are entirely fluvial.
- 2.
In the northern part
List of appendices
Data on which this paper is founded are recorded in the following appendices presented in the Supplementary material attached to the article.
Appendix 1 Studied material and localities.
Appendix 2 Distribution of biogenic grain types found in studied samples of the Bua-bai limestone, Timor-Leste.
Appendix 3 Distribution of Foraminifera found in studied samples of the Bua-bai limestone, Timor-Leste.
Appendix 4 Distribution of Bryozoa found in studied samples of the Bau-bai limestone at the type
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