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Growth, Demise, and Dolomitization of Miocene Carbonate Platforms on the Marion Plateau, Offshore NE Australia

¹ Statoil, N-4035 Stavanger, Norway and Department of Geology, United Arab Emirates University, P.O. Box 17551, Al Ain, U.A.E.; sne{at}uaeu.ac.ae
² University College London, WC1E 6BT London, U.K.
³ Royal Holloway University College London, TW20 0EX Surrey, U.K.

Strontium-isotope stratigraphy has been used to examine the timing of depositional events and dolomitization in two Miocene carbonate platforms cored by Ocean Drilling Program (ODP) Leg 194, just seaward of the Great Barrier Reef. The results provide firm constraints for correlating surfaces and depositional stages between the two platforms and thereby relating seismic sequences previously defined in the off-platform sediments to the lithostratigraphic units described from cores in the seismically transparent platform-top sites. Oyster-bearing beds at the base of both platform successions yield early Oligocene ages (29–31 Ma), thus dating initial transgression of the Marion Plateau's volcanic basement. There followed a period of slow accumulation of shallow-water grainstones rich in quartz and phosphate grains in late Oligocene time (29–23 Ma; seismic Megasequence A). The main growth of the carbonate platforms took place in early to late Miocene time (23–7 Ma), comprising five depositional sequences. The first four of these (seismic Megasequence B) are common to both platforms and terminated with a possible karst surface at 10.7 Ma. Different sedimentologic expression of this megasequence in the two platforms reflects contrasting progradational versus aggradational geometries in the locations studied. The final growth stage (seismic Megasequence C) occurred only in the southern platform and terminated at 6.9 Ma. Both platform-demise events (10.7 and 6.9 Ma) approximately coincide with falls in global sea level combined with longer-term trends of decreasing water temperature. Sr-isotope ages of dolostones increase with depositional age, and older dolostones in the southern platform have more coarsely crystalline and fabric-destructive textures than overlying younger dolostones. These relationships are consistent with dolomitization by normal seawater shortly after deposition and overprinting of multiple times of dolomite recrystallization and cementation in the deeper strata.

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