Introduction and Setting

Abstract

The scientific approach herein is largely comparative because the same type of sediments that made up the Cenozoic strata are accumulating offshore today. The record was, however, controlled largely by changing oceanography, climate, tectonics, and the geohistory of Antarctica. The book focuses on the Paleogene and Neogene carbonate sedimentary rocks across southern Australia. The narrative is a combination of our own studies and those of previous workers. The book is structured in 4 parts. The latitude-parallel paleocontinental margin stretches ~2700 km from west to east. This margin was relatively quiescent in the Eocene and Miocene but upset by late Miocene uplift and exposure resulting in an entirely different depositional style in the Pliocene and Pleistocene. Climate evolved during the Cenozoic from early warm and humid to late cool and semi-arid. There are four separate depositional basins each with its own setting and geohistory. Strata are partitioned into discrete 4 successions, each with different parts.