Exmouth Plateau

The plateau makes up the westernmost structural unit of the Northern Carnarvon Basin, which comprises the Exmouth, Barrow, Dampier, and Beagle Sub-basins, and the Rankin Platform.

[3][4] The formation of the Exmouth's northern margin, the Argo Abyssal Plain, was not initiated until 155 million years ago when Australia broke apart from a continental fragment of the Burma Plate that's present location is argued to be subsumed under Asia.

[5] It wasn't until 20 million years later that the Greater Indian land mass broke from western Australia, forming the central and southern margins of the Exmouth Plateau now known as the Gascoyne and Cuvier Abyssal Plains.

[4] As Australia continued to diverge away from the Antarctic land mass, it migrated in a northeastern direction and rotated counterclockwise to it present location, leaving the Exmouth Plateau along the continent's western margin.

[2] In the begin of the late Triassic, high volumes of sediments accumulate off of the shoreline of western Australia to the northern extend of the Exmouth Plateau by the Mungaroo Deltas.

[7] During the early Jurassic, extension at the west Australian margin initiated simple shear mechanics creating a system of listric normal faults near the eastern region of the Exmouth Plateau.

This reduction in simple shear was in part caused by the deformation that developed series negative flower structures and half-graben systems in the west plateau.

By the Pliensbachian, the general beginning structure of the Northern Carnarvon Basin was formed, creating the Exmouth, Barrow, and Dampier sub-basins along the proximal end of the northwestern Australian margin.

[1] The Lower Dingo sequence cannot be found in the Exmouth Plateau, because deposition During the Early to Middle Jurassic was restricted to sediments filling in the empty troughs of the Northern Carnarvon sub-basins.

[16] Eventually, deposition of the Barrow Delta's sediment ceased during the early or middle Valanginian due to the continental break up at the southern margin of the Exmouth Plateau.

[17] This followed seafloor spreading at the Gascoyne and Cuvier Abyssal Plains and erosion at the surface of the Exmouth, Dampier and Barrow sub-basins and an unconformity at the top of the early to middle Valanginian.