Alice Springs Orogeny

The Alice Springs Orogeny was a major intraplate tectonic (mountain building) episode in central Australia responsible for the formation of a series of large mountain ranges.

The Alice Springs Orogeny was a long lived event, beginning approximately 450 million years ago and concluding about 300 million years ago, and it involved less than 100 km of distributed shortening.

The Alice Springs orogeny was centered in an area that had previously been a marine sedimentary basin, and involved the thrusting up of the underlying metamorphic and igneous rocks of Proterozoic age.

The Alice Springs Orogeny had its beginnings in the Late Ordovician, continuing during the Silurian and Devonian, and by the Carboniferous the folding of the sedimentary deposits of the central Australian basins had produced the mountainous terrain of the MacDonnell Ranges area. Today we see only the eroded remnants of these former mountains in the MacDonnell Ranges and other ranges throughout much of central Australia.

Prior to the Alice Springs Orogeny the Amadeus, Georgina, Wiso and Ngalia sedimentary basins were adjoining. The Alice Springs Orogeny disentombed the Arunta Inlier during mainly south-directed thrusting. Sediment was eroded off the rising mountain belt to result in the deposition of thick foreland sediments which became incorporated into the remaining relics of the former sedimentary basin, becoming the Amadeus, Georgina and Ngalia basins that are preserved today.

Two major crustal blocks dominate Central Australia: the Palaeoproterozoic to Mesoproterozoic Arunta Block and the Mesoproterozoic Musgrave Block. The blocks now separate the Officer, Amadeus, Ngalia and Georgina Basins.

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