Detrital zircon age and provenance constraints on late Paleozoic ice-sheet growth and dynamics in Western and Central Australia

AbstractU–Pb dating and Hf-isotope provenance analysis of detrital zircons from the glaciogenic lower Permian Grant Group of the Canning Basin indicate sources principally from basement terranes in central Australia, with subordinate components from terranes to the south and north. Integrating these data with field outcrop and subsurface evidence for ice sheets, including glacial valleys and striated pavements along the southern and northern margins of the basin, suggests that continental ice sheets extended over several Precambrian upland areas of western and central Australia during the late Paleozoic ice age (LPIA). The youngest zircons constrain the maximum age for contemporaneous ice sheet development to the late Carboniferous (Kasimovian), whereas palynology provides a minimum age of early Permian (Asselian–Sakmarian). Considering the palynological age of the Grant Group within the context of regional and global climate proxies, the main phase of continental ice sheet growth was possibly in the Ghze...