Assessing mineral fertility and bias in sedimentary provenance studies: examples from the Barents Shelf

Provenance and erosional impact of Quaternary megafloods through the Yarlung-Tsangpo Gorge from zircon U-Pb geochronology of flood deposits, eastern Himalaya

Reduce or recycle? Revealing source to sink links through integrated zircon–feldspar provenance fingerprinting

Detrital zircon geochronology can help address stratigraphic- to lithospheric-scale geological questions. The approach is reliant on statistically robust, representative age distributions that fingerprint source areas. However, there is a range of biases that may influence any detrital age signature. Despite being a fundamental and controllable source of bias, handpicking of zircon grains has received surprisingly little attention. Here, we show statistically significant differences in age distributions between bulk-mounted and handpicked fractions from an unconsolidated heavy mineral sand deposit. Although there is no significant size difference between bulk-mounted and handpicked grains, there are significant differences in their aspect ratio, circularity and colour, which indicate inadvertent preferential visual selection of euhedral and coloured zircon grains. Grain colour comparisons between dated and bulk zircon fractions help quantify bias. Bulk-mounting is the preferred method to avoid human-induced selection bias in detrital zircon geochronology.

/pdf/every-zircon-deserves-a-date-selection-bias-in-detrital-4abknvcs1q.pdf

Every zircon deserves a date: selection bias in detrital geochronology

Find a match with triple-dating: Antarctic sub-ice zircon detritus on the modern shore of Western Australia

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/gj.3225

Zircon grain shape holds provenance information: A case study from southwestern Australia

Tilting of the Australian continent: New evidence from the subsidence and deposition history of the Northern Carnarvon Basin

The Influence of Tectonics on the Distribution of Exhumation in the Northern Carnarvon Basin, Australia

https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1161714/latest.pdf

The Magnitude of Exhumation in the Kidson Sub-Basin, Western Australia, Usingthermal and Compaction Techniques


 The Kidson Sub-basin which forms the largest tectonic province of the Canning Basin has high potential for Uranium, sediment-hosted base metals, conventional and unconventional hydrocarbons. The basin has undergone major tectonic events since its formation in the Early Ordovician involving several inversion episodes resulting in extensive exhumation in the basin. The magnitude, timing and distribution of exhumation associated with these inversion episodes are poorly studied due to sparse data in the area. In this study, we integrate recently acquired seismic and well data with existing well data, combining for the first time thermal and compaction techniques to constrain the magnitude and distribution of exhumation associated with these major inversion episodes.Our results from vitrinite reflectance indicate that at least 300 to 500 m of exhumation occurred during the middle Silurian to Early Devonian inversion episode (Prices Creek Compression), 500 to 750 m of exhumation occurred during the middle Carboniferous inversion episode or Meda Transpression and 800 to 1200 m of exhumation occurred during the Late Triassic to Early Jurassic inversion episode, or Fitzroy Transpression. Data from apatite fission track analysis put temporal constraints on the timing of this exhumation and indicate that a paleo-thermal maximum was reached within the Kidson Sub-basin during the Late Triassic extensional event. During this period, we also detect that the sediments were affected by a slight increase in basal heat flow associated with the rifting event.The results from this study also demonstrate that the magnitude of exhumation generally increased with each exhumation period progressively. We suggest that this may have occurred due to the progressive weakening of inherited basement units during each phase. Results also illustrate that each of these inversion events had a much higher impact on the exhumation of the Kidson Sub-basin than previously thought.

/pdf/the-magnitude-of-exhumation-in-the-kidson-sub-basin-western-gsryqrok.pdf

P. Makuluni

Papers

Zircon grain shape holds provenance information: A case study from southwestern Australia

Tilting of the Australian continent: New evidence from the subsidence and deposition history of the Northern Carnarvon Basin

The Influence of Tectonics on the Distribution of Exhumation in the Northern Carnarvon Basin, Australia

The Magnitude of Exhumation in the Kidson Sub-Basin, Western Australia, Usingthermal and Compaction Techniques

The Magnitude of Exhumation in the Kidson Sub-basin, Western Australia, using Thermal and Compaction Techniques