Basement controls on rifting and the associated formation of ocean transform faults - Cretaceous continental extension of the southern margin of Australia

Abstract

The initial stage of continental extension between Australia and Antarctica was associated with lateral changes in extension direction along the margin that reflects the three-dimensional nature of strain during continental rifting. In the Cretaceous Otway Basin, this change in extension direction was related to substantial rheological differences in the lithosphere across the boundary between two Paleozoic fold belts, the Lachlan and Delamerian, with the net extension direction at a high angle to this boundary. The initial Early Cretaceous rifting preserved within the onshore Otway Basin has two main structural subdomains in the eastern and western Otway Basins distinguished by different st..