Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The Pilbara Craton is an old and stable part of the continental lithosphere located in the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The Pilbara Craton is one of only two pristine Archaean 3.8–2.7 Ga (billion years ago) crusts identified on the Earth, along with the Kaapvaal Craton in South Africa .
The Capricorn orogeny was an orogenic event in what is now Western Australia, following the collision of the Pilbara Craton and the Glenburgh Terrane with the Yilgarn Craton during the Glenburgh orogeny. Spanning one billion years, the Capricorn orogeny is marked by widespread deformation and intracratonal reworking.
The Yilgarn Craton is a large craton that constitutes a major part of the Western Australian land mass. It is bounded by a mixture of sedimentary basins and Proterozoic fold and thrust belts . Zircon grains in the Jack Hills , Narryer Terrane have been dated at ~4.27 Ga , with one detrital zircon dated as old as 4.4 Ga. [ 1 ]
The Archean rocks from the Pilbara craton contain some of the first evidence of life, primitive cyanobacterial mats known as stromatolites. Soft-bodied organisms from the Ediacaran collectively known as the Ediacaran biota are found in sandstone around the Flinders Ranges in South Australia, notably at a site known as Wilpena Pound.
Proterozoic greenstones occur sandwiched between the Pilbara and Yilgarn cratons in Australia, and adjoining the Gawler Craton and within the extensive Proterozoic mobile belts of Australia, within West Africa, throughout the metamorphic complexes surrounding the Archaean core of Madagascar; the eastern United States, northern Canada and ...
The Eastern Pilbara Craton is geologically significant due to its age and the types of lithology found within it. Within the Eastern Pilbara Craton there are 2 distinct lithologic divisions: (1), early Earth crust (3.8–3.53 Ga); (2), intrusive granitic domes along with greenstone belts (3.53–3.23 Ga). [3]
The complex outcrops at the exposed western end of the Capricorn Orogen, a 1,000 km-long arcuate belt of folded, faulted and metamorphosed rocks between two Archean cratons; the Pilbara craton to the north and the Yilgarn craton to the south. The Gascoyne Complex is thought to record the collision of these two different Archean continental ...
There are only two locations in the world containing rock formations that are intact enough to preserve evidence of early life: the Kaapvaal Craton in Southern Africa and the Pilbara Craton in Western Australia. [4] The Dresser Formation is located in the Pilbara Craton, and contains sedimentary rock from the Paleoarchean Era.