Late Cenozoic intraplate faulting in eastern Australia

The intensity and tectonic origin of late Cenozoic intraplate deformation in eastern Australia is relatively poorly understood. Here we show that Cenozoic volcanic rocks in southeast Queensland have been deformed by numerous faults. Using gridded aeromagnetic data and field observations, structural investigations were conducted on these faults. Results show that faults have mainly undergone strike-slip movement with a reverse component, displacing Cenozoic volcanic rocks ranging in ages from ∼31 to ∼21 Ma. These ages imply that faulting must have occurred after the late Oligocene. Late Cenozoic deformation has mostly occurred due to the reactivation of major faults, which were active during episodes of basin formation in the Jurassic-Early Cretaceous and later during the opening of the Tasman and Coral Seas from the Late Cretaceous to the early Eocene. The wrench reactivation of major faults in the late Cenozoic also gave rise to the occurrence of brittle subsidiary reverse strike-slip faults that affected Cenozoic volcanic rocks. Intraplate transpressional deformation possibly resulted from far-field stresses transmitted from the collisional zones at the northeast and southeast boundaries of the Australian plate during the late Oligocene-early Miocene and from the late Miocene to the Pliocene. These events have resulted in the hitherto unrecognized reactivation of faults in eastern Australia.