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Large-scale Horizontal Displacement within Australo-Antarctica in the Ordovician

Abstract

Crawford and Campbell have postulated1 (page 11) that the southern continental margin of Australia between longitude 131° ? and 143° ? “is the relic of a major shear which in Early Ordovician time extended still farther across what is now north-eastern Tasmania, and that dextral movement of at least 300 km occurred”. We believe that this hypothesis is without foundation and that the curvature of the southern portion of the Adelaide Orogen and the curvilinear pattern of the Mount Read Volcanics in Tasmania, which were cited to support their arguments, can be explained without invoking1 (page 12) “fault-drag on an immense scale” on opposite sides of the postulated shear (see line AB in Fig. 1).

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DAILY, B., JAGO, J. & MILNES, A. Large-scale Horizontal Displacement within Australo-Antarctica in the Ordovician. Nature Physical Science 244, 61–64 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1038/physci244061a0

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