NTGS Record 2023-009 provides a comprehensive lithostratigraphic description of the Glyde package, which comprises late Palaeoproterozoic, predominantly sedimentary successions of the McArthur and Birrindudu basins, and the Tomkinson Province of the greater McArthur Basin.
The Glyde package comprises a mix of siliciclastic, carbonate, mixed carbonate/fine-grained siliciclastic rocks, bedded evaporites, and minor volcanic rocks that were deposited in the age range ca 1660–1600 Ma in dominantly shallow-marine to emergent palaeoenvironments. It includes six groups: the McArthur Group (southern McArthur Basin); the Vizard Group (central McArthur Basin); the Habgood Group and most of the Balma Group (northern McArthur Basin); the Limbunya Group (Birrindudu Basin); and the lower part of the Namerinni Group (Tomkinson Province). These successions are interpreted to have been contiguous at time of deposition and to be interconnected at depth beneath younger cover of Mesoproterozoic to Phanerozoic rocks. The Glyde package is prospective for a number of mineral commodities including base metals, and hosts the world-class McArthur River Zn–Pb–Ag mine. It also has large-scale potential for unconventional and conventional petroleum.
The publication collates and combines historical and new field-based data to provide baseline datasets of all sixty-seven formal and informal lithostratigraphic units of the Glyde package, including geomorphic expression, nomenclature history, type/reference section(s), outcrop and subsurface distribution and thickness, stratigraphic relationships and boundary criteria, and detailed lithological descriptions. Each unit is fully illustrated with tailored geological maps, and images of exposures, sedimentary structures, thin sections, and representative drill cores, where available. Detailed palaeoenvironmental interpretations are also included. All available geochronological and geological data for Glyde package units are integrated and reinterpreted in order to constrain the depositional ages of the successions, and test and refine proposed inter- and intrabasinal correlations.
Download NTGS Record 2023-009: Stratigraphic characterisation of the Glyde package, greater McArthur Basin through GEMIS.