Lowstand ramps, fans and deep‐water Palaeoproterozoic and Mesoproterozoic facies of the Lawn Hill Platform: The Term, Lawn, Wide and Doom Supersequences of the Isa Superbasin, northern Australia

The Term, Lawn, Wide and Doom Supersequences represent tectonically driven, second‐order sedimentary accommodation sequences in the Isa Superbasin. The four supersequences are stacked to form two major depositional wedges or packages extending south from the Murphy Inlier onto the central Lawn Hill Platform. A major intrabasin structure, the Elizabeth Creek Fault Zone separates the two depositional wedges. The Term and Lawn Supersequences each form a thick, crudely fining‐upward sedimentary succession. The basal part of each supersequence comprises sand‐dominated facies, deposited under lowstand conditions. The overlying transgressive deposits comprise thick successions of carbonaceous, shale‐prone sediment that represents times of increased accommodation. Synsedimentary fault activity along the northwest‐trending Termite Range Fault and major northeast‐trending faults including the Elizabeth Creek Fault Zone resulted in overthickened sections of parts of the Term and Lawn Supersequences in regional depocentres. A regional extensional event occurred during Wide Supersequence time, and resulted in strike‐slip deformation, uplift and tilting of fault blocks and erosion of underlying Lawn sequences. This tectonic event created small, fault‐bounded depocentres, where basal silty turbidites of the Wide Supersequence are locally thickened. Denudation of fault blocks in the hinterland provided increasing coarse clastic sediment‐supply forming thick, sand‐dominated, lowstand deposits of the upper Wide Supersequence. Overall, the Wide Supersequence exhibits a coarsening‐upwards facies trend. Tectonic quiescence resulted in the accumulation of siltstone‐dominated transgressive and highstand turbidite deposits in mid‐Wide time. The base of the Doom Supersequence comprises thick, feldspathic, debris‐flow sandstones signalling a new provenance. Decreasing accommodation is reflected by coarsening‐ and shallowing‐upwards facies trends in late Doom time. Declining accommodation and the end of sedimentation in the Isa Superbasin were most likely initiated by deformation at the start of the Isan Orogeny.

Keywords:

• Isa Superbasin
• Lawn Hill Formation
• McNamara Group
• Mesoproterozoic
• Palaeoproterozoic
• sequence stratigraphy
• Termite Range Formation