Antiquity of the giant inselberg Burringurrah (Mount Augustus), Western Australia, inferred from oxygen isotope dating of kaolinitic weathering

Oxygen isotope-inferred ages as old as the Jurassic have been derived from weathered monzogranite underlying the folded Mount Augustus Sandstone, which forms the massive anticlinal Burringurrah (or Mount Augustus) inselberg, in the Gascoyne district of Western Australia. This large inselberg stands ~700 m above the surrounding duricrusted Neogene Gascoyne planation surface at ~400 m. The 1150 m thick Mount Augustus Sandstone (c. 1620 Ma), buried by some 10 km of rock of the Edmund and Collier Groups, underwent folding during the Edmundian Orogeny (1030–950 Ma). Abundant Permian glacial deposits throughout western and southern Australia suggest that the landscape was extensively impacted by a continental ice mass during the Gondwanan Permian glaciation, and which provides a maximum age for most recorded chemical weathering profiles within Australia.