Abstract
The Robertson Bay Group is a thick (>3,000 m) sequence of turbidites deposited in one or more submarine-fan complexes1–3. It is exposed throughout the eastern half of North Victoria Land and has been assigned variously to the Upper Precambrian4 (on the basis of acritarchs and lack of body fossils), or to the Lower Cambrian5 or Cambrian2 (partly on the basis of trace fossils). We report here Upper Cambrian and Lower Ordovician conodonts in a limestone block within rocks mapped3,6 as Robertson Bay Group in the southeastern part of North Victoria Land. This discovery necessitates a reappraisal of tectonic reconstructions of the pre-Mesozoic units of southeast Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica7–17. A reconstruction is proposed which includes correlation of the Lower Ordovician Greenland Group, New Zealand and the Upper Cambrian–Lower Ordovician Wierah Formation of southern Tasmania.
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Burrett, C., Findlay, R. Cambrian and Ordovician conodonts from the Robertson Bay Group, Antarctica and their tectonic significane. Nature 307, 723–725 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1038/307723a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/307723a0
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