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Research article Journal of the Geological Society

Published online March 21, 2017 https://doi.org/10.1144/jgs2016-105 | Vol. 174 | 2017 | pp. 773–786

Basin inversion and supercontinent assembly as drivers of

sediment-hosted Pb–Zn mineralization in the Mount Isa region,
northern Australia
George M. Gibson1,2*, Laurie J. Hutton3 & Josef Holzschuh2
1
Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia
2
Geoscience Australia, Symonston, Canberra, ACT 2604, Australia
3
Geological Survey of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4002, Australia
G.M.G., 0000-0002-9210-3255; L.J.H., 0000-0003-0767-7607
* Correspondence: george.gibson@anu.edu.au

Abstract: Deep seismic reflection imaging combined with geochronological, palaeomagnetic and stratigraphic data indicate
that the world class sediment-hosted Pb–Zn deposits of northern Australia are preferentially concentrated in the post-
extensional syn-inversion fraction of the Calvert and Isa superbasins. These fractions were deposited at 1650 – 1640 Ma and
1615 – 1575 Ma respectively, and overlap the age of known orogenic events in both Australia and western Laurentia, pointing
to a common origin linked to crustal shortening and supercontinent assembly. Crustal shortening resulted in thrust faulting and
reactivation of earlier-formed extensional faults leading to upward expulsion of mineralizing fluids at or close to the seafloor
while basin inversion and sedimentation were still in progress. This is contrary to most existing models for Pb–Zn ore genesis in
northern Australia where fluid flow and mineralization have been attributed to syn-extensional processes accompanying
continental breakup or thermal sag. Instead, mineralization post-dates passive margin formation and more probably occurred in
a contractional or foreland basin setting involving orogenic loading of the continental crust from the east during assembly or
reassembly of the Nuna supercontinent. A strikingly similar history of basin inversion and Pb–Zn mineralisation is shared by
the late Neoproterozoic-early Paleozoic Selwyn and older epicratonic basins of western North America.
Received 7 August 2016; revised 4 November 2016; accepted 31 January 2017

The global and temporal distribution of sediment-hosted Pb–Zn
deposits is far from uniform. Instead, a disproportionate number of
deposits formed in the latest Palaeoproterozoic–earliest
Mesoproterozoic (1700 – 1600 Ma), mid-Mesoproterozoic
(1100 – 1050 Ma) and late Precambrian–early Palaeozoic (600 –
300 Ma), inviting comparisons with the supercontinent cycle
(Fig. 1), whose peaks overlap these same three time intervals
(Barley & Groves 1992; Leach et al. 2005, 2010; Groves & Bierlein
2007; Pehrsson et al. 2016). A few researchers have gone even
further and advanced the idea that supercontinent assembly and
fragmentation not only determined the timing and distribution of
Pb–Zn mineralization but also influenced its character during
successive stages of the tectonic cycle (Huston et al. 2006; Groves
& Bierlein 2007; Cawood & Hawkesworth 2015). Thus, carbonate-
hosted Pb–Zn deposits of Mississippi Valley-type (MVT) are
posited to have formed during the continental aggregation stage
(Leach et al. 2001; Bradley & Leach 2003) when collisional
processes are at their height and tectonic conditions favour the
formation of foreland basins over other depositional environments
in which sedimentary exhalative (SEDEX) or clastic-dominated Mt
Isa-type deposits are more likely to develop (Leach et al. 2005,
2010). Mt Isa-type deposits are thought to form later in the
supercontinent cycle when plate convergence has largely ceased
and continental assembly has given way to rifting followed by
continental breakup and thermal subsidence (Cawood &
Hawkesworth 2015). However, although a back-arc basin or
passive margin setting is commonly inferred for this type of
mineral deposit (Goodfellow et al. 1993; Betts et al. 2003; Large
et al. 2005; Leach et al. 2005; Huston et al. 2006; Goodfellow 2007;
Gibson et al. 2012; Reynolds et al. 2015), most are hosted by
sedimentary rocks or basins that have since been deformed so that
the evidence in support of a syn-extensional as opposed to later
origin for mineralization is not always immediately obvious or
conclusive. Moreover, even where Pb isotopic data are available to
better constrain the age of mineralization as is the case with many of
the Mount Isa deposits (Carr et al. 2004), doubts persist as to its
timing and relationship to basin formation, particularly in younger
parts of the succession where the evidence for mineralization during
active rifting is least convincing. Indeed, some researchers have
rejected a syn-extensional origin altogether, arguing instead that the
bulk of mineralization was coeval with the basin sag phase (Betts
et al. 2003, 2004) or occurred later still during an episode of crustal
shortening that either completely post-dates basin formation
(Broadbent et al. 1998; Perkins 1998; Zhang et al. 2006; Groves
& Bierlein 2007) or occurred during its closing stages whilst
sedimentation was still in progress (McConachie & Dunster 1996;
Gibson et al. 2016). The depositional and tectonic setting of clastic-
dominated Mt Isa-type mineralization is thus far from resolved and
comparisons continue to be made with MVT deposits with which
they share many similarities (Leach et al. 2005; Huston et al. 2006),
raising questions about not only the relative timing of one deposit
type against the other but also the very relationship of Pb–Zn
mineralization to the supercontinent cycle. Here, we review the
depositional and tectonic setting of sediment-hosted Pb–Zn
mineralization in the Mount Isa region with a view to better
constraining its timing and relationship to global events.
Pb–Zn mineralization and basin evolution
The Mount Isa terrane (Fig. 2) lies wholly within the north
Australian craton and is the world’s largest single repository of Pb–
Zn metal (Huston et al. 2006; Southgate et al. 2006). Although

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774 G. M. Gibson et al.
widely deformed and metamorphosed from 1620 to 1500 Ma
during the Isan Orogeny and younger events, nappe-like structures
and large-scale thrust displacements are for the most part absent or
confined to the eastern part of the terrane (Beardsmore et al. 1988;
Betts et al. 2006; O’Dea et al. 2006; Blenkinsop et al. 2008;
Rubenach et al. 2008; Withnall & Hutton 2013). Consequently,
much of the pre-orogenic crustal architecture is still largely intact
and is dominated by three vertically stacked basins (Jackson et al.
2000; Southgate et al. 2000a), preserving a 200 myr record of
continental rifting, crustal thinning and bimodal magmatism linked
at mid-crustal levels to low-angle extensional faulting and the
emplacement of metamorphic core complexes (Passchier &
Williams 1989; Holcombe et al. 1991; Gibson et al. 2008).
Fig. 1. (a) Temporal and global
distribution of sediment-hosted Pb–Zn
deposits (Leach et al. 2010)
v. supercontinent cycle (Bleeker 2003).
The predominance of deposits in late
Palaeoproterozoic–earliest
Mesoproterozoic and early Palaeozoic
time and their overlap with times of
continental aggregation should be noted.
(b) Apparent polar wander path for
northern Australia showing coincidence in
timing between bends in path and major
Pb–Zn deposits (Loutit et al. 1995;
Idnurm 2000).
The lowermost and oldest of the three basins (the 1790 –
1740 Ma Leichhardt Superbasin) developed in response to ENE–
WSW intracontinental rifting (Fig. 3) and comprises a network of
variably deformed asymmetric basins and half-graben mainly filled
with continental tholeiites, felsic volcanic rocks and fluviatile–
lacustrine sediments (Eriksson et al. 1983; Jackson et al. 2000;
Gibson et al. 2008; Withnall & Hutton 2013). Its volcanic rocks
were erupted as part of a large igneous province (LIP) and date back
to the time when northern Australia is thought to have formed part of
the Nuna supercontinent and lain opposite western Laurentia in a
pre-Rodinia SWEAT-like configuration based on matching rocks of
comparable age in the southwestern United States and east
Antarctica (Thorkelson et al. 2001; Betts et al. 2006, 2008; Payne
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Supercontinent assembly and Pb–Zn mineralization 775

Fig. 2. (a) Simplified geological map for northern Australia showing principal tectono-morphological subdivisions and Pb–Zn mineral deposits (after
Jackson et al. 2000). (b) Position of seismic reflection lines 06GA-M1 and 06GA-M2 in relation to main structures and outcropping parts of Calvert and Isa
superbasins on northern Lawn Hill Platform around Century mine. TRF, Termite Range Fault; MIF, Mount Isa Fault.

et al. 2009; Gibson et al. 2012; Lambeck et al. 2012; Zhang et al.
2012; Furlanetto et al. 2016; Pehrsson et al. 2016; Thorkelson &
Laughton 2016). Basaltic rocks of the 1785 Ma Eastern Creek
Volcanics make up 5 – 8 km of basin fill in the Leichhardt River
Fault Trough (Bain et al. 1992; Gibson et al. 2008) whereas farther
east basaltic rocks are much less common and basin fill is dominated
by quartzite and felsic volcanic units of 1780 and 1760 Ma age
(Neumann et al. 2009). Bimodal volcanism was accompanied by
the intrusion of granite and gabbro at depth and continued to
1740 Ma in the east (Neumann et al. 2009), by which time the first
of the metamorphic core complexes were being extensionally
unroofed (Holcombe et al. 1991; Gibson et al. 2008) but
lithospheric thinning had not yet progressed to the point of
continental rupture and breakup. Shortly after 1740 Ma, bimodal
magmatism and rifting temporarily halted (Fig. 3), followed by
cooling and burial of the basin beneath a post-rift blanket of shallow
marine quartzite and carbonate rocks (Jackson et al. 2000).
Rifting resumed after 1730 Ma with formation of the Calvert
Superbasin (1730 – 1640 Ma; Fig. 3). Faults and half-graben
associated with this phase of basin development more typically
trend NW–SE or NE–SW and cut across the earlier-formed basin
architecture at high angles (Derrick 1982; O’Dea et al. 1997; Betts
et al. 2006; Gibson et al. 2008). Early basin fill is dominated by non-
marine red-beds, fanglomerates and subsidiary amounts of basaltic
lava but after 1700 Ma the basin rapidly deepened and shallow
marine conditions spread across the Lawn Hill Platform whereas
turbidites (Kuridala and Soldiers Cap groups; Fig. 3) began to
accumulate in a deep marine basin developing off the continental
shelf to the east (Gibson et al. 2012; Southgate et al. 2013; Withnall
& Hutton 2013). Turbidite deposition was accompanied by the
intrusion of dolerite dykes and sills (Rubenach et al. 2008; Neumann
et al. 2009; Withnall & Hutton 2013) and an elevated thermal
gradient consistent with continuing lithospheric extension and
crustal thinning. Crustal thinning and basaltic magmatism peaked
around 1655 Ma, by which time the dykes and sills had evolved
towards more Fe-rich compositions and increasingly resembled
oceanic tholeiites emplaced at or close to the point of continental
breakup and rupture (Baker et al. 2010; Gibson et al. 2012).
Subsequent to 1655 Ma, but possibly commencing much earlier, the
continental margin began to rapidly subside and the turbidites along
with their shallow-water equivalents on the Lawn Hill Platform were
buried, together with the underlying rift architecture, beneath a
transgressive sequence of marine carbonates, siltstones and black
finely laminated carbonaceous siltstones dated to between 1670 and
1650 Ma (Page et al. 2000; Neumann et al. 2006). This transgressive
sequence hosts the Mount Isa Pb–Zn deposit as well as several other
world class ore bodies (Hilton–George Fisher, Lady Loretta) and is
separated from the underlying rift-related rocks by the Gun
Unconformity (Southgate et al. 2000a). Based on published
seismic images (Gibson et al. 2016), total cumulative basin
thickness then exceeded 10 – 12 km and the depositional environ-
ment bore more resemblance to a passive margin than to an
intracontinental rift (Fig. 4). Extensional faulting and basaltic
magmatism by this time had all but ceased and this part of northern
Australia faced an open ocean or marginal sea (Gibson et al. 2008,
2012; Lambeck et al. 2012). This margin not only included the
McArthur Basin but also extended eastward into the Georgetown
province (Fig. 4), where synrift sediments and basaltic rocks of
Calvert age (Neumann & Fraser 2007) are similarly overlain by a
transgressive sequence of thinly laminated carbonaceous shales and
siltstones of marine origin (Jackson et al. 2000; Lambeck et al. 2012;
Withnall & Hutton 2013). Sedimentation in the Calvert Superbasin
concluded no later than 1640 Ma (Fig. 3), by which time the basin
had been inverted (Fig. 3), leading to emergent conditions on the
Lawn Hill Platform and the replacement of platform carbonates by
an upward-coarsening and increasingly siliciclastic-dominated
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776 G. M. Gibson et al.
sedimentary sequence (Loretta Supersequence; Krassay et al.
2000a).
The Isa Superbasin is largely confined to the Lawn Hill Platform
(Fig. 2) and incorporates a 5 – 6 km thick sequence of rhythmically
bedded turbidites, carbonaceous shales and dolomitic siltstone
deposited in a shallow- to deep-water marine environment (Hutton
& Sweet 1982; Krassay et al. 2000a,b). Although variously
interpreted as a foreland basin (McConachie & Dunster 1996;
Broadbent et al. 1998), strike-slip basin (Southgate et al. 2000a;
Feltrin et al. 2009) or thermal sag phase (Betts & Lister 2001; Betts
et al. 2003), seismic reflection images for this part of the Lawn Hill
Platform have since revealed a far more complicated basin history
involving a return to extensional faulting and half-graben formation
during River and Term time (Fig. 3). Thermal sag sediments
(uppermost Term) constitute only a small fraction of the basin fill
(Fig. 3) and are subordinate in volume and thickness to the
overlying syn-inversion package. Deposition of this syn-inversion
package commenced no later than c. 1615 Ma with onset of the Isan
orogeny (Gibson et al. 2016) and continued to at least 1575 Ma, by
which time (Fig. 3) sedimentation in the Isa Superbasin ceased and
Fig. 3. Simplified stratigraphic column for
Mount Isa region showing three-fold
subdivision into Leichhardt, Calvert and
Isa superbasins but different
interpretations of basin development and
tectonic evolution (Southgate et al. 2000a;
Betts & Lister 2001; Betts et al. 2003;
Gibson et al. 2016). Stars represent main
periods of Pb-Zn mineralisation.
the last of the major Pb–Zn deposits had been emplaced at Century
(Southgate et al. 2000a). Its 1595 Ma host rocks (Wide
Supersequence) postdate the onset of crustal shortening by
20 myr, precluding all but a syn-orogenic origin for this mineral
deposit (Broadbent et al. 1998; Feltrin et al. 2009; Gibson et al.
2016). In this respect, Century bears more similarity to MVT
deposits and has already been described as such (Broadbent et al.
1998; Huston et al. 2006). Yet in many other respects its host rocks
are little different from the even more richly endowed Gun
Supersequence in the Calvert Superbasin, whose finely laminated
carbonaceous to dolomitic siltstones not only are compositionally
and lithologically similar to the Wide Supersequence but also
occupy much the same stratigraphic position towards the top of the
basin (Fig. 3).
Timing of Pb–Zn mineralization in Calvert Superbasin
Except for Dugald River and Cannington (Figs 2 and 4), dated at
1655 Ma and 1665 Ma respectively (Carr et al. 2004), all of the
Pb–Zn mineral deposits of any size in the Calvert Superbasin occur
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Supercontinent assembly and Pb–Zn mineralization 777

Fig. 4. (a) Schematic representation of palaeogeography in Calvert Superbasin at c. 1655 Ma with platform carbonates (Upper Gun Supersequence) passing
laterally into deep marine turbidites, which together form part of a passive margin sequence facing a marginal sea or open ocean basin to the east.
(b) Analogous passive margin sequences for Palaeozoic Selwyn Basin at the same scale, along with distribution of main Pb–Zn mineral deposits.

on the Lawn Hill Platform (e.g. Lady Loretta) or along the western
margin of the immediately adjacent Leichhardt River Fault Trough
(Mount Isa, Hilton–George Fisher), where they are hosted by the
1670 – 1640 Ma Gun and Loretta supersequences (Page et al. 2000;
Neumann et al. 2006). Their Pb model ages range from 1654 Ma at
Mount Isa and Hilton–George Fisher to 1648 Ma at Lady Loretta
(Carr et al. 2004) and, like many other deposits, have long been
known to plot at a prominent bend or inflection point (Fig. 1b) in the
apparent polar wander path for northern Australia (Idnurm 2000).
Some form of external tectonic control is evident but, unlike the
1575 Ma Century and 1640 Ma McArthur River Pb–Zn deposits,
for which there is a corresponding and long-recognized episode of
crustal shortening and/or transpresssion (Hinman 1995; Scott et al.
2000; Southgate et al. 2000b; Gibson et al. 2008; Withnall &
Hutton 2013), no matching compressional event at c. 1650 Ma has
ever been identified in the Leichhardt River Fault Trough. Rather,
the conclusion till now has been that mineralization at 1650 Ma was
more probably controlled by transient extensional processes,
including further normal faulting, in a tectonic regime otherwise
dominated by strike-slip faulting (Southgate et al. 2000b) or thermal
sag (Betts et al. 2003).
Yet mapped faults in the Leichhardt River Fault Trough,
including many structures of unequivocal extensional origin,
typically terminate in lowermost Moondarra Siltstone at the Gun
Unconformity and do not extend upward into the Gun
Supersequence or immediately overlying Loretta Supersequence
(Fig. 5). These faults are instead confined to the synrift component
(Prize Supersequence) of the Calvert Superbasin or older rocks of
the Leichhardt Superbasin (Fig. 5). A syn-extensional origin for
Pb–Zn mineralization and its host rocks in this part of the Mount Isa
region is therefore deemed unlikely. Moreover, even though
contacts between the Loretta and Gun supersequences in this part
of the Leichhardt River Fault Trough are conformable with little or
no direct evidence that one or both units were undergoing
deformation at the time they were being deposited, sedimentation
patterns change dramatically across this depositional boundary.
Beginning at the very top of the Gun Supersequence, and
continuing through Loretta into the overlying River
Supersequence, bedding thickness, grain size and the amount of
quartz sand entering the basin all increased (Domagala et al. 2000).
Growing tectonic instability and the emergence of a new source
region have been invoked as the most likely explanation for these
changes (Southgate et al. 2000b) and find support in observations
made farther north on the Lawn Hill Platform and Murphy Ridge
(Fig. 2), where uplift and erosion have removed as much as 1700 m
of sedimentary section from beneath the Loretta Supersequence
(Bradshaw et al. 2000). This includes all of the Gun Supersequence
and most of the underlying synrift fraction of the Calvert Superbasin
(Bradshaw et al. 2000). As with the Isa Superbasin, basin
inversion in the Calvert Superbasin evidently commenced late in
the basin cycle and before the last of the sedimentary units had
been deposited, an interpretation for which there is independent
support in recently published seismic reflection data (Gibson et al.
2016).
Seismic evidence for basin inversion at 1600 and 1650 Ma
Revised and slightly modified interpretations of two previously
published seismic reflection profiles (06GA-M1 and 06GA-M2) are
presented in Figure 6. Both pertain to the Lawn Hill Platform and
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778 G. M. Gibson et al.
Fig. 5. (a) Part of Leichhardt River Fault Trough in Lake Moondarra area
showing limited disruption of post-rift Moondarra Siltstone (Gun
Supersequence) by extensional faults compared with underlying older
units in Calvert and Leichhardt superbasins. Host rocks (Urquhart Shale)
to the Mount Isa and Hilton–George Fisher deposits are identified as a
separate unit within the Calvert Superbasin.
were acquired with a view to better understanding basin architecture
in the vicinity of the Century deposit (Fig. 2b). All three superbasins
have been imaged but the focus here is on the upper parts of the
Calvert and Isa superbasins, where stratal geometries more
obviously developed in response to uplift and erosion accompany-
ing crustal shortening. Sedimentary units making up these parts of
the basins typically thin over the crests of antiformal folds
developed in the hanging walls of reactivated normal faults or
their associated footwall shortcut thrusts (Gibson et al. 2016). In the
case of the Isa Superbasin, such thinning is particularly well
developed in the 1615 Ma Lawn and 1595 Ma Wide super-
sequences (Fig. 3), both of which thin through onlap onto the
flanks of folds developed in the underlying Term Supersequence
(Fig. 6a). Deposition of these two units occurred while folding and
thrusting were still in progress.
In marked contrast, the syn-extensional fraction of basin fill in
this superbasin (River and lowermost Term supersequences) retains
its original wedge-like geometry and thickens into the Riversleigh
Fault (Fig. 6a) as is expected of sediments deposited in a half-
graben or asymmetric basin. Overlying this syn-extensional
component is an even thinner post-rift fraction that post-dates
normal faulting and makes up the uppermost part of the Term
supersequence. The Doom Supersequence (Fig. 3), for which a syn-
orogenic 1585 Ma depositional has been obtained (Page & Sweet
1998; Page et al. 2000), is also taken to be part of the syn-inversion
sedimentary package although this cannot be determined from the
seismic data alone.
Basin inversion and anticlinal folding are no less evident in the
hanging walls of several other reactivated extensional structures,
including the Termite Range Fault, which directly underlies the
Century deposit (Fig. 6a) and may have served as a fluid conduit
during mineralization. However, unlike the Riversleigh structure,
the Termite Range Fault breaches the surface and does not terminate
in the post-rift fraction of the Isa Superbasin (Fig. 6a). It exhibits a
component of reverse-slip (or oblique-slip) displacement and
continued to be active during deposition of the Lawn and Wide
supersequences. The Wide Supersequence hosts the bulk of Pb–Zn
mineralization at Century and was deposited subsequent to the onset
of the Isan Orogeny at 1615 Ma. Mineralization at Century thus not
only post-dates the onset of crustal shortening as originally
proposed (Broadbent et al. 1998) but also was coeval with thrust
faulting and basin inversion in its host rocks.
Where imaged in the seismic data along line 06GA-M1 (Fig. 6b),
the much older River Supersequence at the base of the Isa
Superbasin (Fig. 3) visibly thins through onlap onto the flanks of
asymmetric folds that must have already existed or grown while the
unit was being deposited (Gibson et al. 2016). Several such folds
have been imaged at depth beneath Mount Caroline (Fig. 2b) but
none of them nor any of the thrust faults developed in their
overturned limbs continue upwards for any distance into the
overlying stratigraphic units (Fig. 6b). Instead, these structures
rapidly die out or are abruptly truncated at the base of the overlying
Term Supersequence (Fig. 6b), indicating that basin inversion not
only had concluded by this time but also cannot be any younger than
the 1635 Ma depositional age usually assigned to this unit (Fig. 3).
In this region, the base of the Term Supersequence is an angular
unconformity that later deformation during the Isan Orogeny failed
to mask (Fig. 6b). This unconformity has been deformed into a
broad arch but is much less intensely folded than rocks making up
the thicker and more strongly inverted core of the Calvert
Superbasin. In contrast, the angular unconformity with the
Leichhardt Superbasin at the base of this inverted sequence exhibits
few signs of basin inversion and has a near-zero apparent dip in the
seismic line (Fig. 6b) owing to an orientation that is subparallel to
the main basin-forming structures (Fig. 2).
Directly south of Mount Caroline, but still east of the Termite
Range Fault, contact relations between the River and Loretta
supersequences along line 06GA-M2 are more difficult to decipher
owing to a confused set of reflections arising out of a bend in the
seismic line. Any thinning of units in this region is confined to the
Loretta Supersequence (Fig. 6a). The River Supersequence, on the
other hand, rests unconformably on a truncated Loretta
Supersequence and maintains constant thickness all the way
westwards to the Termite Range Fault before undergoing a
progressive but rapid thickening into the Riversleigh Fault
(Fig. 6a). This is more consistent with an extensional origin for
most, if not all, of the River Supersequence. However, as beneath
Mount Caroline, onlap of the River Supersequence onto a more
steeply dipping Calvert Superbasin is plainly discernible just east of
the Riversleigh Fault (Fig. 6a), leaving open the possibility that
deformation may not have concluded during deposition of the
Loretta Supersequence but continued into early River time. In either
event, there is little evidence to suggest that basin inversion lasted
much beyond 1640 Ma, by which time the depositional environ-
ment dramatically changed and shallow-water coarse clastic
sediments were no longer being deposited (Shady Bore
Quartzite). Instead, there was a return to deep-water conditions
and the deposition of siltstone. The episode of basin inversion that
commenced with the aforementioned influx of quartz sand into the
Leichhardt River Fault Trough during late Gun or early Loretta time
at c. 1654 Ma evidently concluded around this same time and lasted
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Supercontinent assembly and Pb–Zn mineralization

Fig. 6. Seismic reflection profiles orthogonal (06GA-M2) and subparallel (06GA-M1) to main basin-forming faults in vicinity of Century Mine. (a) Partially inverted half-graben in rocks of Calvert and Isa age with syn-
inversion Lawn and Wide supersequences thinning over antiformal folds developed in hanging walls of a NE-dipping reactivated extensional fault (Riversleigh Fault) and associated footwall shortcut thrust. Century Mine is
underlain by a reactivated NE-dipping extensional fault or footwall shortcut thrust (Termite Range Fault). TWT, two-way travel time; CDP, common depth point. (b) Longitudinal section (06GA-M1) through same inverted
basins illustrating along-strike geometry of hanging-wall antiforms in Calvert and Isa superbasins beneath Mount Caroline and Ploughed Mountain; fold amplitude is greatest where basin fill is thicker and more strongly
inverted. Owing to low obliquity of section to regional strike, both the Riversleigh and Termite Range faults exhibit shallow apparent dips.

779
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780 G. M. Gibson et al.
more than 10 myr, encompassing the entire time interval over which
Pb–Zn mineralization occurred. Southgate et al. (2000b) attributed
the change in depositional patterns to the onset of strike-slip faulting
and concluded that this was in turn linked to plate convergence and
orogenesis along the southern margin of the north Australian craton
(see also Scott et al. 2000; Betts et al. 2003). Another possibility,
and the one explored in more detail here, is that these and other
changes towards the end of the Calvert Superbasin were driven by
subduction-related events to the east of the cratonic margin and
involved one or more episodes of arc–continent collision (Fig. 7). A
similar train of events has been invoked to explain basin evolution
along the continental margin of ancestral North America, including
in the equally well-endowed but much younger late
Neoproterozoic–early Palaeozoic Selwyn Basin with which the
rocks of Mount Isa might be usefully compared (Fig. 4).
Selwyn Basin as a Palaeozoic analogue for Calvert and
Isa superbasins
After northern Australia, the second largest concentration of
sediment-hosted Pb–Zn deposits in the world occurs in western
North America (Leach et al. 2010), accounting for a significant
proportion of the global peak in mineralization from 600 to 300 Ma
(Fig. 1a). These deposits are mainly hosted by epicratonic basins
formed during and subsequent to Rodinia breakup in the late
Neoproterozoic to early Palaeozoic, and stretch from southern
Canada to the Brooks Range in Alaska (Goodfellow et al. 1993;
Nelson et al. 2002; Slack et al. 2004; Young 2004; Leach et al.
2005, 2010; Dickinson 2006; Goodfellow 2007). The Selwyn Basin
is one of the largest and best studied of these basins (Fig. 4) and
incorporates a variably deformed continental margin sequence in
which turbidites and other deep-water sedimentary facies have been
thrust eastwards over a shallow-water carbonate-dominated plat-
form and outer shelf sequence (McClay et al. 1989; Goodfellow
et al. 1993; Nesbitt & Muehlenbachs 1994; Mair et al. 2006). As
with the Mount Isa basins, Pb–Zn deposits occur at more than one
stratigraphic level but are particularly common along the interface
between the platform and deeper water sediments (Fig. 4b). No less
importantly, the Selwyn Basin shares a very similar evolution with
the basins in northern Australia and comprises not one but three
separate unconformity-bounded successions (Goodfellow et al.
1993; Goodfellow 2007).
The oldest of these three successions includes basaltic rocks with
continental affinities but for the most part its basin fill is dominated
by shallow-water sediments deposited in an intracontinental setting
from late Neoproterozoic to early Cambrian time. It bears some
similarity to the Leichhardt Superbasin in terms of both its history
and evolution, and was followed in the Cambrian–Devonian by a
transition to deeper water sedimentation and passive margin
conditions before onset of the Late Devonian–Carboniferous
Antler Orogeny (Nelson et al. 2002; Mair et al. 2006). The
youngest and uppermost succession (Devonian–Carboniferous) in
the Selwyn Basin is dominated by deeper water slope to basinal
sedimentary facies bearing a striking resemblance to the thinly
Fig. 7. Interpreted geodynamic setting of
Australian and opposing Laurentian
margins from 1840 to 1600 Ma.
(a) Continental breakup and formation of
conjugate rift margins between 1840 and
1800 Ma. (b) Leichhardt and Calvert
superbasins develop in back-arc setting
behind an east-facing magmatic arc
(Bonnetia) and west-dipping subduction
zone. Continued slab roll-back and
eastward retreat of this subduction zone
will eventually lead to plate convergence
between Australia and Laurentia and
closure of the original intervening ocean
basin by 1650 Ma. (c) By 1655 Ma,
inboard side of back-arc basin has evolved
into a passive margin with carbonate
platform in the west and a deep-water
turbidite sequence extending eastwards as
far as Georgetown and beyond. (d) Arc–
continent collision with east Australian
margin being overridden by Bonnetia.
Thermally weaker back-arc basin
collapses in response to subduction
advance as the leading edge of Laurentia
encroaches upon the subduction zone.
(e) Following a short interval of renewed
crustal extension and deposition of the Isa
Superbasin and Wernecke Supergroup,
Australia and Laurenta collide and an
already deformed and fragmented
Bonnetia is obducted in the opposite
direction over the Laurentian margin.
Collision results in the doubly divergent
Isan and Racklan–Forward orogenic belts.
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Supercontinent assembly and Pb–Zn mineralization
laminated dolosiltstones and black carbonaceous shales of the Gun
Supersequence. This succession contains MacMillan Pass as well as
several other clastic-dominated (SEDEX) Pb–Zn deposits (Fig. 4b)
for which a synsedimentary, syn-extensional, Late Devonian–
Carboniferous age is widely accepted (Goodfellow et al. 1993;
Leach et al. 2005; Goodfellow 2007).
MVT deposits have a more restricted distribution in the basin and
occur only in the flanking carbonate platform rocks (Nesbitt &
Muehlenbachs 1994; Leach et al. 2001, 2010; Goodfellow 2007).
They include the Robb Lake deposit (Fig. 4b) dated at 362 ± 9 Ma
(Nelson et al. 2002). It exhibits many of the attributes expected of a
typical MVT deposit (Nesbitt & Muehlenbachs 1994) but paradox-
ically is no different in age from some of the SEDEX deposits at
MacMillan Pass and elsewhere in the basin for which a syn-
extensional origin has been proposed (Leach et al. 2005, 2010;
Goodfellow 2007). This has prompted suggestions (Nelson et al.
2002) that Robb Lake and other MVT deposits like it in the Selwyn
Basin do not conform to type. More specifically, a syn-orogenic origin
for these deposits was rejected in favour of an alternative interpretation
in which these deposits not only were coeval with their SEDEX
counterparts but also formed during the same extensional event. It was
further suggested that this extensional event was driven by subduction
roll-back along the ancestral continental margin of North America,
resulting in formation of a back-arc basin in which both MVT and
SEDEX mineralization took place (Nelson et al. 2002).
Other researchers have taken the view that these same MVT
deposits originated during crustal shortening (Nesbitt &
Muehlenbachs 1994), an interpretation seemingly at odds with a
syn-extensional origin for the coeval SEDEX deposits but
consistent with the observation that the Antler Orogeny shares the
same late Devonian–Carboniferous age. Elsewhere along the
western Cordillera, this event was accompanied by basin inversion
and the shedding of sedimentary detritus eastwards into a foreland
basin (Smith et al. 1993; Nesbitt & Muehlenbachs 1994; Trexler
et al. 2004). This would suggest that existing models for Pb–Zn
mineralization based around the contemporaneity of mineralization
with extension in the Selwyn Basin are not without their problems
and are still open to debate (Dickinson 2006). More importantly,
given the many parallels between this basin and those in northern
Australia, there is a high probability that a model developed for Pb–
Zn mineralization in one basin is equally applicable to the others
and rests on a better understanding of the tectonic environment in
which the basins evolved despite being separated in time and space
by more than one billion years. By virtue of its younger age and
location behind an extant and still evolving rifted continental
margin, the plate-tectonic setting of the Selwyn Basin from the time
of its inception until cratonization is far more amenable to
reconstruction and thus affords important clues as to the likely
tectonic drivers and processes involved at successive stages of basin
development and Pb–Zn mineralization not only in western North
America but also in northern Australia.
Discussion
Geodynamic setting and evolution of the east Australian
rifted margin
As with other basins developed along the Pacific margin of ancestral
North America following Rodinia breakup, the Selwyn Basin has
been subjected to successive episodes of extension and contraction
from the time it first formed in the late Neoproterozoic–early
Palaeozoic until the last of the terranes in the immediately adjacent
Intermontane Belt was accreted during the Laramide Orogeny
(Nelson et al. 2002; Mair et al. 2006). This episodicity was driven
by far-field tectonic stresses arising out of subduction advance and
retreat along the margin and brought about periods of plate
781
convergence and orogenesis separated by extensional collapse, arc
magmatism and back-arc basin formation (Mair et al. 2006). The
Antler Orogeny is considered to be the earliest of the contractional
events and resulted from arc–continent collision (Smith et al. 1993;
Dickinson 2006). Orogenic loading associated with such collisional
events not only offers an effective mechanism for driving regional-
scale fluid flow of the type implicated in the formation of MVT
deposits (Garven 1985; Leach et al. 2001; Bradley & Leach 2003;
Dickinson 2006) but also obviates the need to have separate tectonic
triggers for deposits of different type but identical ages in a single
basin. Such an event therefore has considerable appeal as a means of
forming mineral deposits in basins such as the Selwyn and Calvert.
However, whereas subduction polarity and the sense of plate
convergence at different times are reasonably well known for
western North America, no such certainty pertains to the older
basins of northern Australia and tectonic models based on both
north- and west-dipping subduction have been proposed.
Most researchers subscribe to the former and have the Leichhardt
and Calvert superbasins developing in a back-arc setting located
above a north-dipping, but southward-retreating, subduction zone
that was located either along the southern margin of the north
Australian craton (Scott et al. 2000; Giles et al. 2002; Betts et al.
2003; Huston et al. 2012) or even farther afield along the southern
side of the still connected south Australian and east Antarctic
cratons (Mawsonland) from where it continued along-strike into
southern Laurentia (Giles et al. 2004; Betts et al. 2008, 2016). In
either case, the 1800 – 1600 Ma interior basins of northern Australia
and Laurentia share a common origin and geodynamic setting, and
lie inboard of an active continental margin that faced an open ocean
to the south. Far-field effects arising out of changes in the rate or
configuration of subduction along this margin are thought to have
driven orogenesis and crustal shortening in the interiors of both
continents, deforming the basins along with their underlying
continental basement rocks (Betts et al. 2008, 2016).
The best known of these deformed elements in central Australia is
the Warumpi terrane, whose accretion and/or collision with the
north Australian craton during the 1640 – 1635 Ma Liebig Orogeny
(Scrimgeour et al. 2005) overlaps the age of basin inversion and
mineralization (McArthur River) in the Calvert Superbasin (Fig. 1).
A causal relationship between crustal shortening in central Australia
and sediment-hosted Pb–Zn mineralization in the Calvert
Superbasin therefore seems likely, as has been suggested many
times before (Giles et al. 2004; Betts et al. 2008, 2016; Huston et al.
2012; Gibson et al. 2016). It is nevertheless still far from certain that
successive episodes of deformation and mineralization in central
and northern Australia at 1650 Ma or earlier were predominantly
driven by subduction rollback and the repeated opening and closing
of ocean basins to the south of a still-growing north Australian
craton, let alone be linked to a convergent margin lying on the other
side of Antarctica. Deformed basinal sequences and terranes of late
Palaeoproterozoic age in the Gawler, Curnamona and north
Australian cratons all share a common provenance and Nd isotopic
signature (Payne et al. 2006; Barovich & Hand 2008) and would not
appear to have been far removed from each other at any time
between 1800 and 1640 Ma (Payne et al. 2009). Other interpreta-
tions of basin formation and crustal shortening in central Australia
cannot be excluded, including intraplate deformation accompany-
ing the opening and closing of an ocean basin to the east (Gibson
et al. 2008). Sedimentary facies, fault orientations and kinematic
indicators in exhumed metamorphic core complexes, along with
compositional changes in basaltic magmatism (Jackson et al. 2000;
Gibson et al. 2008; Baker et al. 2010; Southgate et al. 2013), are all
consistent with crustal thinning towards the east or NE from
1800 Ma onward but cannot easily discriminate between a passive
margin formed through breakup of the Nuna supercontinent and one
developed on the inboard side of a back-arc basin or marginal sea.
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782 G. M. Gibson et al.
Gibson et al. (2008) argued for the latter and proposed that the
Leichhardt and Calvert superbasins both evolved behind an east-
facing magmatic arc that initially rifted off the Australian margin
along with its underlying continental basement during Gun time
before being reunited with the passive margin no later than 1640 Ma
(Fig. 7). Palaeomagnetic data pointing to an episode of ocean basin
closure between 1720 and 1650 Ma (Pisarevsky et al. 2014) are
consistent with such an interpretation but cannot completely rule out
other tectonic models in which continental breakup and passive
margin conditions were established earlier and predate deposition of
most if not all of the Calvert Superbasin. Notwithstanding the
possibility of more complicated trajectories for basin evolution, by
1720 Ma or shortly after, continental rifting and crustal extension
had become well established along the eastern margins of both the
north and south Australian cratons, and sedimentary basins of
Calvert age extended in a north–south direction ( present-day
coordinates) all the way south from Mount Isa and Georgetown
through the eastern Curnamona and Gawler cratons into east
Antarctica (Peucat et al. 1999; Rutherford et al. 2006; Gibson et al.
2008; Szpunar et al. 2011), cutting across and isolating the
Warumpi terrane and other deformed basinal sequences of late
Palaeoproterozoic age in south–central Australia from their inferred
counterparts along-strike in southern Laurentia. In this interpret-
ation, rifting and crustal extension are preferentially concentrated
along the eastern margin of conjoined Australian and Antarctic
continents (Gibson et al. 2008; Payne et al. 2009) and there is no
need for these two events to be paired with either plate convergence
or subduction roll-back along a more distal margin on the opposite
side of Antarctica or the south Australian craton (Giles et al. 2004;
Betts et al. 2008, 2016). Quite apart from the substantial volume of
intervening continental crust and difficulties of linking interior
back-arc basin development to such a distant margin (but see Betts
et al. 2016, for a possible solution), this interpretation predicts an
overall progression of sedimentary basins and their depocentres
southward in tandem with the changing position of the north-
dipping subduction zone. Instead, the opposite is observed in the
Leichhardt and Calvert superbasins, whose volcanic and sediment-
ary depocentres not only migrated eastwards during successive
stages of basin development but also progressively deepened in the
same direction (Gibson et al. 2012, 2016; Southgate et al. 2013;
Withnall & Hutton 2013).
Pb–Zn mineralization and its tectonic drivers in northern
Australia
Ore genesis models for clastic-dominated Pb–Zn mineralization in
the basins of northern Australia and western North America often
assume contemporaneity of mineral deposits with extensional
faulting or thermal sag in a rift or passive margin setting (Betts et al.
2003; Leach et al. 2005, 2010; Huston et al. 2006; Goodfellow
2007; Reynolds et al. 2015; Slack et al. 2015). As argued here, a
majority of deposits in the Calvert and Isa superbasins more
probably formed subsequent to crustal extension during times of
basin inversion (Fig. 6). Moreover, even though the conditions for
basin inversion and mineralization in these two basins were only
occasionally met, these were almost certainly externally imposed
and driven by crustal-scale orogenic processes, involving crustal
shortening and deep burial in more proximal parts of the orogen as
evidenced by Barrovian metamorphism beginning around 1655 Ma
in the Georgetown province and 1650 – 1640 Ma elsewhere (Cihan
et al. 2006; Rubenach et al. 2008). Crustal shortening during the
Isan Orogeny has long been recognized as one of the drivers for
mineralization in the Century deposit at the top of the Isa Superbasin
(Broadbent et al. 1998; Gibson et al. 2016) but, with the exception
of McArthur River at 1640 Ma (Hinman 1995), the primary trigger
for fluid flow and attendant Pb–Zn mineralization elsewhere in the
Mount Isa region is usually considered to be crustal extension not
shortening. Accordingly, Century has been classified as an MVT
deposit and thought to be the sole example of this deposit type in the
Mount Isa region (Huston et al. 2006). In the analysis presented here
no such distinction is made and all sediment-hosted Pb–Zn deposits
in the Calvert and Isa superbasins are thought to share a common
tectonic origin, irrespective of age and whether they are located in
the Leichhardt River Fault Trough or neighbouring parts of the
Lawn Hill Platform.
Conversely, there is no need to abandon elements of existing ore
genesis models in which mineralization is observed to form
proximal to extensional faults and be synsedimentary in origin
(Goodfellow et al. 1993; Large et al. 2005; Leach et al. 2005, 2010;
Huston et al. 2006; Goodfellow 2007). As determined here for
deposits in the Mount Isa region, basin inversion was accompanied
by reactivation of former extensional faults and took place while
sedimentation in the Calvert and Isa superbasins was still in progress
(Fig. 6). Consequently, these faults and their associated footwall
shortcut thrusts more than probably acted as conduits along which
mineralizing fluids would have migrated during inversion before
being expelled at or near the seafloor. Given the thinly laminated
character of the marine sediments hosting these deposits, it seems
equally likely that this process initially took place in deep water and
was entirely submarine in nature. Sediment loading and crustal
shortening during basin inversion then combined to over-pressure
the basin, driving fluids upward along the faults all the way to the
seafloor or sediment–water interface where mineralization actually
took place. As deformation progressed and folds grew in amplitude
on the seafloor, it might be further surmised that this led to
restrictions in bottom water circulation and possibly even anoxic
conditions as parts of the basin became ever more isolated, creating
ideal conditions for sediment-hosted mineralization. Breaching of
regional seals may have assisted fluid flow but, unlike many existing
models for SEDEX or Mount Isa-type deposits that combine
extensional faulting with convecting fluid cells to drive mineral-
ization (Goodfellow 2007; Leach et al. 2010), there is no need to
appeal to elevated heat flow. In the Mount Isa region, fluid flow is
principally driven by post-extensional crustal shortening and occurs
at a stage in basin evolution when any residual heat or thermal
anomaly resulting from earlier rift-related magmatism and litho-
spheric thinning is already at a low ebb and losing its potential to
promote vigorous hydrothermal activity.
Supercontinent assembly as driver for Pb–Zn
mineralization in northern Australia
Although it is increasingly agreed that northern Australia and
western Laurentia were once proximal to each other and formed part
of the Nuna supercontinent (Thorkelson et al. 2001; Betts et al.
2008, 2016; Gibson et al. 2012; Lambeck et al. 2012; Zhang et al.
2012; Furlanetto et al. 2016; Medig et al. 2016; Thorkelson &
Laughton 2016), there is still no consensus about the exact timing
and manner of supercontinent assembly, let alone its subsequent
breakup when the majority of Pb–Zn mineral deposits supposedly
formed (Cawood & Hawkesworth 2015). Some researchers have
proposed that crustal extension and rifting in western Laurentia may
have commenced as early as 1840 Ma (Rainbird et al. 2003;
Davidson 2008) and proceeded to continental breakup no later than
1800 Ma, by which time passive margin conditions were estab-
lished and Proterozoic North America faced an open ocean to the
west (Cook et al. 2005). The Leichhardt and Calvert Basins both
formed later and so cannot possibly be conjugate to any passive
margin of 1800 Ma or older age in western Laurentia. SWEAT-like
reconstructions of Nuna in which northern Australia was originally
connected to NW Canada (Betts et al. 2008, 2016; Gibson et al.
2012) are still possible but only if the east Australian margin
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Supercontinent assembly and Pb–Zn mineralization
underwent further crustal extension and rifting after breakup at
1800 Ma and then evolved independently of its Laurentian
counterpart behind an east-facing magmatic arc until c. 1650 Ma.
Palaeomagnetic data are consistent with this tectonic model
(Fig. 7) and require only that Australia and Laurentia be widely
separated at 1720 Ma before being brought together at c. 1650 Ma
(Pisarevsky et al. 2014). Bends or inflection points at 1710 and
1653 Ma in the apparent polar wander path for northern Australia
(Fig. 1) would further indicate that these times overlapped or
coincided with periods of tectonic instability during the course of
which the external stress field or plate-tectonic setting changed
(Fig. 7a–c). Even more conspicuous is the hairpin bend at 1640 Ma
(Fig. 1), long interpreted as evidence of a major plate reorganization
at this time (Idnurm 2000; Southgate et al. 2000b). It coincides with
the conclusion of basin inversion and crustal shortening in the
Calvert Superbasin, indicating that the changes if not reversals in
plate motion recorded between 1650 and 1640 Ma, particularly if
accompanied by collision (Fig. 7d), may have been the single most
important factor in creating the conditions necessary for regional-
scale fluid flow and Pb–Zn mineralization in this basin. Most, if not
all, of the major clastic-dominated Pb–Zn deposits in the Leichhardt
River Fault Trough and neighbouring parts of the Lawn Hill
Platform formed during this period and it is clear from the seismic
reflection data that this mineralization was linked to basin inversion.
By 1650 Ma (Fig. 7d), crustal shortening was already under way
across much of the Mount Isa region and ever-increasing quantities
of quartz sand were being transported southward from a source
region on the northern Lawn Hill Platform undergoing uplift and
erosion in response to NE–SW compression (Bradshaw et al. 2000;
Southgate et al. 2000b).
No less importantly, this deformation involved a significant
component of crustal thickening as evidenced by contemporaneous
medium-pressure Barrovian-style metamorphism, garnet- and
kyanite-bearing relicts of which date back to 1655 or 1650 Ma
and occur widely throughout the Georgetown Province and more
easterly parts of the Mount Isa region (Cihan et al. 2006; Rubenach
et al. 2008). Coincidently, clastic sedimentary sequences during late
Gun time, and continuing through to Shady Bore Quartzite at the
very top of the Loretta Supersequence, began to coarsen and
shallow upwards (Krassay et al. 2000a). Infilling of a foreland basin
is inferred here (Fig. 7d), in keeping with observations that
sedimentary transport during the closing stages of the Calvert
Superbasin was consistently directed southward away from areas in
the east and NE that had been subjected to higher metamorphic
grades and deeper burial during Barrovian metamorphism. Crustal
thickening and tectonic loading evidently increased from west to
east during late Calvert time, consistent with a collisional event
whose origins lay east of Georgetown and most probably involved
plate convergence along the eastern margin of Proterozoic Australia
(Fig. 7d). At the conclusion of this deformational event, large tracts
of northern Australia had been subjected to regional-scale fluid flow
and hydrothermal potassic alteration, which occurred no later than
1640 Ma (Cooke et al. 1998; Gibson et al. 2016) and facilitated Pb–
Zn mineralization at McArthur River (Fig. 2) during close of the
Calvert Superbasin (Fig. 3).
Gibson et al. (2008) argued that deformation and basin inversion
at the end of Calvert time were driven by arc–continent collision but
were unable to locate the associated magmatic arc, speculating that it
may have subsequently rifted away during Rodinia breakup and
now resides in western North America where it makes up part of the
Mojave terrane. More recently, Canadian researchers have identified
fragments of a magmatic arc caught up in breccias at the top of the
1649 ± 14 Ma Wernecke Supergroup in the Canadian Cordillera
(Thorkelson et al. 2001; Furlanetto et al. 2009, 2016; Thorkelson &
Laughton 2016). These fragments date back to 1720 Ma (Furlanetto
et al. 2013) and are thought to have formed part of an east-facing
783
magmatic arc (Bonnetia) that originated along or close to the east
Australian margin prior to its obduction and emplacement over the
west Laurentian margin during the ≤1663 Ma Forward and Racklan
orogenies (Furlanetto et al. 2016; Thorkelson & Laughton 2016).
Obduction followed closure of an ocean basin lying to the east of the
arc and was accomplished through subduction of older intervening
oceanic crust westwards from 1720 Ma (Furlanetto et al. 2016;
Thorkelson & Laughton 2016), mirroring in many respects the
tectonic model proposed by Gibson et al. (2008), particularly in
regard to the existence of an older ocean basin that opened and
closed ahead of arc–continent collision. The arcs identified in both
models would appear to be one and the same, and are interpreted as
such in Figure 7. Accordingly, the Canadian name Bonnetia
(Furlanetto et al. 2013, 2016; Thorkelson & Laughton 2016) has
been adopted here for this magmatic arc (Fig. 7).
Important differences between the two interpretations neverthe-
less remain, particularly in relation to the interpreted c. 1600 Ma age
of arc–continent collision in NW Canada as opposed to an older
1650 Ma age for northern Australia (Fig. 7). Palaeomagnetic data
(Pisarevsky et al. 2014) lend strong support to the idea that
Proterozoic Australia and Laurentia were already proximal to each
other by 1650 Ma. An older age for collision is also supported by
the observation that more distal parts of the Calvert Superbasin had
already been subjected to crustal thickening and Barrovian
metamorphism before the overlying and significantly younger
≤1640 Ma Isa Superbasin had even been deposited let alone
deformed during the 1620 – 1585 Ma Isan orogeny. The Wernecke
Supergroup overlaps the Isa Superbasin in age so that any
equivalent collisional event in NW Canada might be expected to
be of comparable age and predate deposition of this supergroup.
Instead, Bonnetia is interpreted to have been obducted and
emplaced over the west Laurentian margin at about 1600 Ma and
therefore at about the same time that the Isan Orogeny was under
way in northern Australia (Thorkelson et al. 2001; Furlanetto et al.
2016; Thorkelson & Laughton 2016). Either there has been more
than one arc–continent collision or Bonnetia first collided with the
Australian margin at 1650 Ma before being obducted over the
opposing Laurentian margin at 1600 Ma. The second interpretation
is preferred here (Fig. 7) and matches the 1650 – 1640 Ma north
Australian events with the less well-known ≤1663 Ma Forward
Orogeny, best known from seismic images and whose early stages
(Phase One) were similarly accompanied by basin inversion and the
deposition of syntectonic sediments (Hornby Group) (Cook &
MacLean 1995; MacLean & Cook 2004). An angular unconformity
separates this older inverted sequence from rocks not much different
in age from the Isa Superbasin and Wernecke Supergroup (Cook &
MacLean 1995). Such similarities in basin history are unlikely to be
coincidental, indicating that the change in plate-tectonic regime or
external stress field identified at 1650 Ma for northern Australia
may also have had an impact in NW Canada and further reinforcing
the view that Australia and Laurentia were probably proximal to
each other by this time but perhaps not yet engaged in continent–
continent collision. In any event, by 1650 Ma, plate boundary
conditions had changed sufficiently to induce deformation along
both continental margins and, more importantly, bring about
collapse of the back-arc basin that had been developing along the
east Australian margin since 1800 Ma (Fig. 7). Deformation and
crustal shortening were presumably initially partitioned into this
back-arc basin because the Calvert Superbasin had only just ceased
rifting and was in a thermally weakened state following basaltic
magmatism at 1655 Ma. More speculatively, deformation at
1650 Ma in the Calvert Superbasin may have had its origins in
the changing nature of subduction in the ocean basin to the east of
the arc, which had either arrested its eastward retreat following entry
of thinned Laurentian crust into the subduction channel or simply
begun to advance in a manner akin to that which drove basin
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784 G. M. Gibson et al.
inversion and collapse in the younger Palaeozoic Selwyn Basin
(Dickinson 2006; Mair et al. 2006).
Either way, by 1640 Ma, northern Australia was again undergo-
ing extension accompanied by deposition of the Isa Superbasin at
about the same time that the Wernecke Superbasin was being laid
down in NW Laurentia. The depositional setting and reason for this
switch in tectonic regime in northern Australia are not yet well
understood but may have involved either subduction retreat or
extensional collapse of crust over-thickened during the earlier arc–
continent collision. Irrespective of cause, both continental margins
were again converging and undergoing crustal shortening from
around 1620 or 1600 Ma, culminating in continent–continent
collision and orogenesis (Fig. 7e). The Racklan and Isan orogenies
both date from this time interval and both verge inland away from
their respective former continental margins, indicating that they are
probably not only mirror images of each other but also manifesta-
tions of one and the same doubly divergent collisional event
(Fig. 7e).
If so, these two orogenic events may have been instrumental in
formation of the Century MVT deposit in northern Australia as well
as a raft of SEDEX and MVT deposits throughout NW Canada
(Thorkelson 2000). Pb–Zn deposits older than 1600 Ma in NW
Canada (Thorkelson 2000) better match those in the Calvert
Superbasin. Thus, contrary to most prevailing petrogenetic models
for sediment-hosted Pb–Zn mineralization in northern Australia and
elsewhere, these deposits formed not only long after continental
breakup but also in a depositional and tectonic environment where
crustal shortening not crustal extension was the predominant driver
of fluid flow. Crustal extension still remains important in the genesis
of such deposits but only insofar as it gave rise to the basinal
sequences that provided the future source of both fluids and metals.
It is equally possible that the dearth of major Pb–Zn deposits in
northern Australia after Century (Fig. 1) is in part due to the fact that
Australia and Laurentia remained together until Rodinia breakup in
the late Neoproterozoic, inhibiting a repeat of the depositional and
tectonic conditions that produced this style of mineralization. Until
that time, northern Australia remained adjacent to western Canada,
shedding sediment and detrital zircons of 1550 Ma or younger age
eastwards into the post-1600 Ma sedimentary basins of western
North America (Medig et al. 2016). Recent suggestions that
sediment-hosted Pb–Zn deposits are more likely to form during the
disaggregation rather than aggregation stage of the supercontinent
cycle may therefore need to be modified in light of the analysis
presented here.
Conclusions
Sediment-hosted Pb–Zn mineral deposits in northern Australia are
not part of a passive margin sequence or sag phase as is commonly
assumed but occur towards the top of the Calvert and Isa
superbasins in their respective syntectonic, syn-inversion sediment-
ary fractions. During these stages of basin evolution, extensional
faulting all but ceased and the depositional environment resembled
a foreland basin in which basin fill was controlled by uplift and
erosion of an emergent fold and thrust belt driven by far-field
stresses or collision at a continental margin distal to the Mount Isa
region. Collision-related basin inversion events are recognized at c.
1650 – 1640 and 1615 – 1575 Ma, broadly coinciding with times of
Pb–Zn mineralization and marking critical stages in the progression
towards assembly of the Nuna supercontinent. Proterozoic Australia
and ancestral western North America collided during the second and
terminal event giving rise to the 1600 Ma Isan and Racklan
orogenies. All major sediment-hosted Pb–Zn deposits in the Mount
Isa region predate this last collision, indicating that mineralization
occurred during rather than after supercontinent assembly as is
sometimes suggested. The late Neoproterozoic–early Palaeozoic
Selwyn Basin in Canada shares many similarities with the basins of
northern Australia, including a history of extension interrupted by
basin-inversion forming events that were similarly driven by
continental margin processes. A linkage between late
Palaeoproterozoic–early Mesoproterozoic basin formation and
subduction-related events along the more distal southern margin
of Laurentia (Betts et al. 2008, 2016) is not precluded by this
interpretation but based on the analysis presented here may have
been of secondary importance to those occurring between eastern
Australia and western Laurentia.
Acknowledgements Constructive and insightful comments from
P. Donchak, I. Withnal, K. Czarnota, P. Betts and D. Thorkelson greatly
improved the paper. This paper is a contribution to IGCP 648.
Funding The seismic data for the Lawn Hill Platform were acquired as part of
the Predictive Mineral Discovery Co-operative Research Centre and were jointly
funded by Geoscience Australia, Geological Survey of Queensland and Zinifex
(now Mines and Metals Group).
Scientific editing by Chris Clark
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