Yilgarn Craton - Murchison Province

Murchison Province

The Murchison Province is exposed in the western and northern third of the Yilgarn Craton. The Province is bounded by major transcrustal structures which separate it from the surrounding tectonic provinces of the craton and the Western Gneiss Belt.

The Murchison Province Stratigraphy, after Watkins (1990), is divided into six basic structural-stratigraphic components - two greenstone belt metavolcanic-metasedimentary sequences and four suites of granitoids.

  • Luke Creek Group metavolcanics
  • Mount Farmer Group
  • Early granodiorite-monzogranite intrusive suite (now pegmatite-banded orthogneiss)
  • Monzogranite Suite (now folded, metagranite)
  • Two post-tectonic differentiated suites of granitoid rocks

The structural framework in the northeastern Yilgarn craton was largely shaped by transpression that led to the development of folds, reverse faults, sinistral strike-slip movement on NNW-trending regional shear zones, followed by regional folding and shortening. The later occurred in overlapping tectonic processes. The first deformation event is poorly understood but appears to have involved N-S thrusting.

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