Abstract

Palaeopumice strand deposits (1800 to 4000 years B.P.) occur in the Balmoral Beach Aboriginal Shell Midden excavations. In composition, the pumice clasts are low-potassium dacites and contain up to 5% xenocrysts, phenocrysts and glomerophenocrysts of orthopyroxene, pyroxene, plagioclase and iron oxide minerals. The matrix includes smaller grains of these minerals in an abundant, highly vesicular rhyodacite volcanic glass. The 3300 year old and younger pumices typically contain rare xenocrysts and phenocrysts of magnesian olivine, forming an unusual mineral assemblage. One older pumice clast is a quartz-bearing rhyodacite, with distinctive trace element geochemistry. The typical dacites, resemble those erupted from the Tonga-Kermadec island arc in the Southwest Pacific, due both to the presence of olivine and the variably depleted trace and rare earth element contents. This implies a 4000 km drift caused by the East Australian oceanic current, before the pumice was stranded in Port Jackson.

 
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Bibliographic Data

Short Form
Sutherland and Barron, 1998, Rec. Aust. Mus. 50(3): 241–262
Author
F. L. Sutherland; B. J. Barron
Year
1998
Title
Balmoral Beach Aboriginal shell midden, Port Jackson, Australia: pumice petrology and sources
Serial Title
Records of the Australian Museum
Volume
50
Issue
3
Start Page
241
End Page
262
DOI
10.3853/j.0067-1975.50.1998.1284
Language
en
Date Published
25 November 1998
Cover Date
25 November 1998
ISSN (print)
0067-1975
CODEN
RAUMAJ
Publisher
The Australian Museum
Place Published
Sydney, Australia
Subjects
ABORIGINES: AUSTRALIAN; ANTHROPOLOGY; CULTURE: INDIGENOUS
Digitized
11 March 2009
Available Online
16 July 2009
Reference Number
1284
EndNote
1284.enw
Title Page
1284.pdf
File size: 109kB
Complete Work
1284_complete.pdf
File size: 4580kB