AUSTRALIA/Tasman Orogenic Belt 239 Figure The major geological elements of Australia, showing the Tasman Orogen along the eastern margin Location of the more detailed map area of Figure is shown (e.g Great Artesian, Murray, and Sydney–Bowen Basins) now cover much of belt (Figure 3) Accretion was accompanied by marked structural thickening and shortening (by about 75%) of Neoproterozoic platform and rift basinal sequences (Delamerian part), a Cambrian–Orodovician composite turbidite submarine fan overlying Cambrian oceanic crust (Lachlan part), and Carboniferous–Permian arc, fore-arc, and trench (subduction complex) and Permian foreland basin sequences (New England part) (Figure 3) For a large part of the history (Silurian– Early Carboniferous), deformation occurred by massive telescoping, with thrusting largely directed away from the cratonic core, together with components of strike-slip translation within a progressively deforming and prograding sediment fan along the Gondwanan margin The margin was intruded by voluminous granitic plutons (accounting for up to 35% of the area), derived from subduction-generated mantle magmas and lower- to middle-crustal melting, between the Late Ordovician and the Triassic (Figure 3) The spatial and temporal variations in deformation, metamorphism, and magmatism across the Tasman Orogenic Zone show how subduction–accretion complexes are monotonous turbidite sequences evolve through time and eventually form crust of continental thickness and character Tasman Orogen Make-up The Delamerian, Lachlan–Thomson, and New England Orogens, which form the composite Palaeozoic and Mesozoic Tasman Orogen (Figure 2), are distinguished by their lithofacies (Figure 3), differing tectonic settings, and timing of orogenesis and eventual consolidation with the Australian craton (Table 1) The Delamerian Orogen involved an inverted intracratonic rift, the Lachlan Orogen involved closure of a south-west-Pacific style marginal basin incorporating Bengal Fan-sized turbidite fans, and the New England Orogen involved a deformed arc–subduction complex belt