Mount Desire Dyke is designated place of geological significance. It is located 16 km (9.9 mi) north-east of Hawker in South Australia, on the edge of the Flinders Ranges. The dyke (or dike) is a rock structure where mobile material, being a breccia of rock salt and rubble (as in 'salt diapirs') has intruded into cracks in folded Adelaidean sediments in the geological past [1][2]
The site was added to the South Australian Heritage Register on 30 March 1998. Its significance is described as follows:[1][3]
This site contains a number of features of considerable importance to research and debate concerning the nature and origin of the Mt Desire Dyke and other diapirs of the Flinders Ranges, including: typical dolomitic-vanished evaporite breccia and dolostone/metasediment xenoclasts (to km in size) of probable Willouran origin; sharp irregular and distinctive contacts with early Cambrian units such as the Mernmerna Formation, Oraparinna Shale, and Wilkawillina Limestones, including a particularly important apophysis interpreted as an intrusive re-entrant; and significant brecciation in, and metamorphic incongruence between, the material of the dyke and the adjacent Cambrian limestones.
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b PhD thesis of Trev J Mount, 1975, on "Diapirs and diapirism in the Adelaide Geosyncline" (Flinders Ranges) now is published online (free download) by the Department of Energy & Mining (Geological Survey of South Australia) as Report Book 2021/00006
- ^ "Search result for "Mount Desire, Mt" with the following layers selected - "Suburbs and Localities", "SA Government Regions", "Gazetteer" and "SA Heritage Places"". Location SA Map Viewer. Government of South Australia. Retrieved 20 October 2022.
- ^ "Mount Desire Dyke (designated place of geological significance)". SA Heritage Places Database Search. Government of South Australia. 30 March 1998. Retrieved 24 January 2020.
31°45′16″S 138°34′00″E / 31.754432°S 138.566693°E
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