Abstract
Field mapping during the 1981–82 season in northern Victoria Land, Antarctica, has revealed that the Bowers graben, an elongate feature infilled with sediments of Middle to Upper Cambrian or Lower Ordovician age, extends entirely across northern Victoria Land from the northern coast to the mouth of Mariner Glacier (Fig. 1). The Leap Year Fault, postulated to be the eastern boundary of the graben has been confirmed this season in outcrop. Areas west of the Bowers graben, previously mapped as Robertson Bay Group south-west of Mariner Glacier, are in fact equivalents of Wilson Group which occurs farther north along regional structural trends. Early and middle Palaeozoic granitoids appear divisible into S- and I-types with the Bowers graben marking the approximate eastern limit of S-types. We show here that the Bowers graben and associated tectonic features mark a major crustal boundary. Because the graben strikes south-east into the Ross Sea without emerging elsewhere in the Transantarctic Mountains, the rocks of the graben and those east of it represent a geological terrain which appears to be unique throughout the Transantarctic Mountains. This boundary zone is of fundamental importance in the tectonic architecture of the region and is an important consideration in any reconstruction of Australia and Tasmania with the Antarctic continent1,2.
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Stump, E., Laird, M., Bradshaw, J. et al. Bowers graben and associated tectonic features cross northern Victoria Land, Antarctica. Nature 304, 334–336 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1038/304334a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/304334a0
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