Australian Geological Provinces 2018.01 edition

Brief description

The Australian Geological Provinces Database contains descriptions and spatial extents of the fundamental geological elements of the Australian continent and offshore surrounds. Province types include sedimentary basins, tectonic provinces such as cratons and orogens, igneous provinces, and metallogenic provinces. Spatial data has been captured largely at approximately 1:1M scale for intended use between 1:2M and 1:5M scale.

This edition (2018.01) of the dataset is NOT a complete representation of all of Australia's geological provinces. Further work is required to complete the national geological province collection. Additionally, not all the provinces supplied herein have undergone a rigorous quality assurance (QA) check to ensure the accuracy and completeness of their descriptions.

Where possible, provinces have been attributed with their age, contained lithostratigraphic units, relationships to other provinces, geological history, mineral resource occurrences, and selected published references. The geological definition of some provinces is contentious. While every effort has been made to achieve a consensus interpretation of each province, including significant collaboration with state and territory geological surveys, scientific debate may still occur about the nature and extent of some provinces.

The full 2D spatial extent (ie, including the extent of a province under any overlying cover material) of provinces has been captured. Additionally, the extent of outcrop of some provinces has also been captured. Where possible, the full extent outlines of provinces have been attributed with information about the source, accuracy, and observation method of those lines.

Lineage

The spatial data (polygons and lines) was compiled typically at or around 1:1 million scale from a wide range of published surface geology maps, bedrock or basement geology maps, borehole data, and geophysical imagery. Where province boundaries crossed jurisdictional borders, Geoscience Australia worked with State and Territory geological agencies to achieve an agreed spatial extent. Descriptive attribute data was compiled from authoritative published literature wherever possible, and names of these references are supplied with the data. Not all the data in this edition of the dataset (2018.01) has undergone rigorous quality control. All province descriptions in this edition of the dataset contain an indication of whether the data has been checked or not.