Tectonic Context
Tectonics explains the large-scale structure of the Earth's crust and its constituent rocks in terms of blocks moving along faults, uplifted into horsts or downthrown into grabens. The ACT is positioned on the Australian continent, which was once a part of the supercontinent Gondwana. The ACT is in the Tasmanides, the deformed rocks of the orogen that make up the core of the old mountain range that makes up the Australian continent east of the Tasman Line. These rocks are an addition onto the Proterozoic core of the continent. The Tasmanides are the result of compression, horizontal shortening, and vertical thickening of various "terranes" such as small continental fragments and volcanic island arcs that were plastered against the original continental margin as a result of plate tectonic movements.
The Tasmanides also extended into Antarctica in the south and northern China on the north, as these continental units were attached to Australia at the time, in Gondwana.
The ACT is part of the Eastern Lachlan Fold Belt, which is located on a terrane that is called the Benambra Terrane in Victoria, but the Molong-Monaro Terrane in New South Wales.
Read more about this topic: Geology Of The Australian Capital Territory
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