Loxton-Parilla Sands

The Murray Basin is a Cenozoic sedimentary basin in south eastern Australia. The basin is only shallow, but extends into New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. It takes its name from the Murray River which traverses the Basin from east to west.

One theory for the formation of the basin is that it is dynamic topography due to a sinking slab of oceanic crust. This slab was subducted during latest Cretaceous and Early Cenozoic periods to the north of the Australian continent underneath New Guinea. The slab broke off and was gradually overridden by the Australian plate moving north. The sinking slab has a trace in the P-wave velocity in the mantle which is higher from 800 to 1200 km deep below the Murray basin, and also the Lake Eyre Basin. The velocity anomaly is oriented northwest-southeast and extends from 135°E 26°S to 144°E35°S. The sinking has dragged down the rock above it to make a hollow which is the basin. This hollow has moved south over the last 50 million years. If this theory is correct, then the Murray basin will move south over the next tens of millions of years and disappear under the Southern Ocean. Modelling using the Underworld program by Moresi indicates that the slab would be sinking at 8.5 mm per year and cause a depression on the surface 200 m deep around 2500 km wide. In the past the basin depression was narrower but deeper in this model.

After Australia separated from Antarctica, the Murray Basin was formed. The basin floor only subsided slowly over time. The basin became filled with up to 600 metres (1,970 ft) of sediments during the Cenozoic Era.

From Paleocene to the Eocene Epoch, the western side was flooded with seawater and deposited the Warina sand. The sea withdrew, and later in the Eocene, silt and clay of the Olney Formation were deposited. One minor sea incursion in the Late Eocene resulted in the Buccleuch Formation in South Australia. The group of deposits is termed the Renmark Group and was earlier known as the Knight Group.

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