A *400 km long deep crustal reflection seismic survey was acquired in central Victoria, Australia, in 2006. It has provided information on crustal architecture across the western Lachlan Orogen and has greatly added to the understanding of the tectonic evolution. The east-dipping Moyston Fault is confirmed as the suture between the Delamerian and western Lachlan Orogens, and is shown to extend down to the Moho. The Avoca Fault, the boundary between the Stawell and Bendigo Zones, is a west-dipping listric reverse fault that intersects the Moyston Fault at a depth of about 22 km, forming a V-shaped geometry. Both the Stawell and Bendigo Zones can be divided broadly into a lower crustal region of interlayered and imbricated metavolcanic and metasedimentary rocks and an upper crustal region of tightly folded metasedimentary rocks. The Stawell Zone was probably part of a Cambrian accretionary system along the eastern Gondwanaland margin, and mafic rocks may have been partly consumed by Cambrian subduction. Much of the Early Cambrian oceanic crust beneath the Bendigo Zone was not subducted, and is preserved as a crustal-scale imbricate thrust stack. The seismic data have shown that a thin-skinned structural model appears to be valid for much of the Melbourne Zone, whereas the Stawell and Bendigo Zones have a thick-skinned structural style. Internal faults in the Stawell and Bendigo Zones are mostly west-dipping listric faults, which extend from the surface to near the base of the crust. The Heathcote Fault Zone, the boundary between the Bendigo and Melbourne Zones, extends to at least 20 km, and possibly to the Moho. A striking feature in the seismic data is the markedly different seismic character of the mid to lower crust of the Melbourne Zone. The deep seismic reflection data for the Melbourne Zone have revealed a multilayered crustal structure that supports the Selwyn Block model.
Deformation events and episodes of metamorphic mineral growth are usually regarded as relatively local phenomena. It is not expected that specific events and episodes within an orogenic sequence should exactly correlate over large distances. There is no obvious reason, for example, to assume that deformation and/or metamorphic events in the Western European Alps would directly correlate with events taking place in the Aegean continental crust, c. 1000 km distant. Yet linked episodes of deformation and metamorphism appear to take place at the same time over large distances, even in these apparently unrelated segments of the same orogenic belt. This large-scale episodic behaviour appears to be associated with switches in tectonic mode, from compressional orogenesis to extensional tectonism, and may be the result of orgenic surges and/or periods of lithospheric extension following accretion events. The effect of these switches is greatest in back-arc environments, in the over-riding plate above major subduction zones. In these environments, roll-back of the subducting lithospheric slab after individual accretion events ensures that the amount of lithospheric extension after each accretion event is large. As a result this is where coherent high-pressure metamorphic terranes formed in the preceding accretion event are exhumed, and where remnants of newly emplaced ophiolite sheets are stranded by newly formed detachment faults.
This paper considers the large-scale geometry of the northern part of the eclogite±blueschist belt of New Caledonia, based largely on classical-style structural analysis, but in consideration of modern concepts regarding crustal extension, exhumation of high-pressure rocks and uplift. Shear zones played an important role in the evolution of the region. Early shear zones and high pressure metamorphism appear to be associated with overthrusting of an ultrama®c sheet. Middle-stage shear zones are associated with large-scale continental extension, during which the high-pressure rocks were exhumed. The extended crust was subsequently folded during renewed compression, producing an orogen-scale antiform throughout the high-pressure belt that folds all previously formed structures. Late stage shear zones formed when the orogen was once again thrown into extension. Relatively youthful normal faults caused late block-faulting, uplifting a regional peneplain and producing the present geomorphology.Previously published interpretations of the structure and geometry of the belt have suggested that the high-pressure rocks are found in the core of a regionally developed antiform, interpreted as a metamorphic core complex. Our structural mapping shows that allochthonous slices of high-pressure rocks are draped over a younger (unrelated) foliation antiform. Lower-grade (retrogressed equivalent) rocks are found within the core of the antiform. Thus the metamorphic core complex model is rejected.
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