Queensland Was Once Connected To Canada

Описание: #queensland #canada #australia
Did you know that part of Queensland was once physically attached to Canada? This video uncovers the astonishing story of the Georgetown Inlier, a fragment of ancient North American crust now found in the heart of northern Queensland. Geological evidence shows that this piece of land was once part of Laurentia, the ancient core of North America, before it drifted away as a microcontinent and eventually collided with proto-Australia more than 1.6 billion years ago.

The Georgetown Inlier is a Precambrian terrane that holds the secrets of Earth’s early supercontinents. Through detailed zircon dating, hafnium isotopes, and geochemical fingerprints, scientists have been able to match its rocks with those of the Wernecke Supergroup in Yukon, Canada. These results prove that Queensland and Canada were once connected during the assembly of the supercontinent Nuna, also known as Columbia. When Nuna broke apart, Georgetown rifted away from Laurentia and spent millions of years as a drifting microcontinent, before colliding with the Mount Isa Inlier and becoming part of the North Australian Craton.

This geological detective story is pieced together from the tiniest of minerals: zircon crystals. These crystals contain uranium and lead isotopes that allow geologists to determine their exact ages. They also preserve isotopic ratios, like epsilon hafnium values, that reveal the sources of the magmas from which they crystallised. By comparing zircon records from Queensland and North America, geologists uncovered a perfect match, showing that the Georgetown Inlier was once part of Canada before joining Australia.

The geological journey of Georgetown did not end with its collision. Over the next billion years, the region was reshaped by waves of granitoid magmatism, where huge underground magma chambers solidified into granite batholiths deep within the crust. Around 1550 million years ago, mantle heat re-melted the crust, producing large plutons that remain today as evidence of Mesoproterozoic magmatic activity. Later, during the Siluro–Devonian period around 420 million years ago, new intrusions formed as the eastern margin of Australia became active with the building of the Tasman Orogen. Another surge of magmatism occurred in the Carboniferous–Permian around 340–300 million years ago, producing vast granitic bodies such as the Dido Supersuite. These events show how the crust of Queensland was repeatedly reworked, heated, and reshaped by tectonic forces long after its arrival from North America.

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Studies Used To Construct This Video:
Laurentian crust in northeast Australia: Implications for the assembly of the supercontinent Nuna:
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/...

Late Neoproterozoic to Holocene thermal history of the Precambrian Georgetown Inlier, northeast Australia:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/1...

Crustal evolution in the Georgetown Inlier, North Queensland, Australia: a detrital zircon grain study:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...

The Tasman Line: Where is it, what is it, and is it Australia's Rodinian breakup boundary?
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/1...

The Paleoproterozoic Wernecke Supergroup of Yukon, Canada: Relationships to orogeny in northwestern Laurentia and basins in North America, East Australia, and China:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...

The Adelaide Rift Complex in the Flinders Ranges: Geologic history, past investigations and relevant analogues:
https://www.researchgate.net/publicat...

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