Carboniferous to Lower Permian stratigraphy of the southern Tamworth Belt, southern New England Orogen, Australia: Boundary sequences of the Werrie and Rouchel blocks

Carboniferous to Lower Permian successions along the western border of the Tamworth Belt between Wallabadah and Muswellbrook were remapped to clarify the stratigraphy and establish a boundary between the Werrie and Rouchel blocks. The boundary, located at the Waverley Fault, separates Carboniferous sequences containing different formations and volcanic members. SHRIMP AS3 dating of volcanic members indicates that successions within the Rouchel and Gresford blocks were deposited, uplifted and eroded at different times. The lacustrine Woodton Formation in the Werrie block, previously considered Carboniferous, is earliest Permian (Asselian) from palaeobotanical and SHRIMP AS3 evidence. Stratigraphic and palaeoenvironmental differences between the Werrie and Rouchel blocks suggest that they were not directly juxtaposed during the greater part of the Carboniferous, supporting palaeomagnetic evidence that blocks within the Tamworth Belt are allochthonous. Superposition of the western extremity of the Waverley Fault by Lower Permian (Sakmarian) formations and intrusion of folded and faulted Devonian to Lower Permian successions by the Barrington Tops Granodiorite (ca 280 Ma) indicate that the Werrie, Rouchel and Gresford blocks were subjected to tectonism before the Late Permian Hunter-Bowen Orogeny.