[6] The lava flow deposits of the Kirkpatrick Basalt belong to the Ferrar Large Igneous Province, developed in a linear belt along the Transantarctic Mountains, from the Weddell Sea region to North Victoria Land, covering approx.

[7] This event was linked with the initial stages of the breakup of the Gondwanan part of Pangea, concretely with the rifting of East Antarctica and Southern Africa, developing a magmatic flow controlled by an Early Jurassic zone of extension related to a triple junction in the proto-Weddell Sea region at approximately 55°S.

[8] This eruptions phase includes the Dufek Intrusion, the Ferrar Dolerite sills and dikes, extrusive rocks consisting of pyroclastic strata, and the Kirkpatrick Basalt lava flows, with a total thickness variable, but exceeding 2 km in some places.

[9] The Paleovulcanology analisis of the Mawson Formation have recovered Permian and Triassic material, which was eroded by lavas, with the presence of tachylite pyroclasts that imply rapid cooling by interaction with water.

[11] In this paleovalleys, massive production and accumulation of volcanic lahars in lowlands occur, in a similar way to more recent ones of places such as Osceola Mudflow at Mount Rainier.

[1] This deposits mark the know locally as "Mawson Time", a section of the sedimentological evolution of the Ferrar Range, where volcanic material deposited in Allan Hills and Coombs Hills, while the Carapace Sandstones hosted an alluvial plain that recovered all the volcanic detritus, being latter flooded and developing a lacustrine ecosystem.

[12] Other more recent lacustrine/fluvial sequences have been described in new outcrops, like at Suture Bench and SW Gair Mesa, with abundant invertebrate and plant fossils.

[13]The Formation includes two main locations: Carapace Nunatak in South Victoria Land, representing a deposit of interbeds dominated by sandstones of fluvial to lacustrine origin.

[14] The main outcrop of this location is notorious for the presence of a 37 m Hialoclastite, volcanic material accumulated, likely on a local lake of the same depth.

This lacustrine-type deposit is also found on the second main fossiliferous outcrops of the formation, being in the Queen Alexandra Range in the Central Transantarctic Mountains.

[15] Sedimentary interbeds deposited over lava flows of the Kirkpatrick Basalt during the Early Jurassic splitting of Gondwana represent unusual freshwater paleoenvironments, with hotter conditions that allow to the diversification of the microbes (Archea).

The Mawson Formation consists of diamictites, explosion breccias, and lahar flows, evidence of magma entering water-saturated sediments.

[17][18] There abundant Fossils of microorganisms, as members of the group Archea and other who take advantage of the hydrothermal activity[16][6][19] The Acuatic fauna, dominated by invertebrates, includes a diversity of species complete enough to establish Trophic chains: there are traces of feeding, including a coprolite of uncertain affinity with a fish scale, conchostracan valves with traces of possible biotic borings and palynological residues linked with Ostracodan valves.

Related to the modern Cyzicus mexicanus and recovered in siliclastic interbeds, representing the most common fossil animal in the unit.

Specimens recovered show different variations in coloration, what can indicate effects of hydrothermal influence on either the living animal or the dead carapace.

Interpreted as traces of crustaceans searching for food in the lacustrine bottom Lepidurus[27][26] All the Sections Complete Specimens A Freshwater member of Notostraca.

Correlated with coeval East African and Indian lioestheriids Protamphisopus[26] All the Sections Complete Specimens A Freshwater member of Isopoda.

One of the few fishes from this family recovered outside Australia, represents a genus that likely lived linked with Hydrothermal settings and was very proliferous on the local lacustrine systems.

[21] Indeterminate Middle Section Galleries of an infesting organism in conchostracan valves Mostly of the samples recovered at Carapace Nunantak are characterised by dominance of the Cheirolepidaceous Classopollis and Corollina.

Two taxa, the Araucariaceous Callialasporites dampieri and the Pteridaceae Contignisporites cooksoni are also common palynological residues in local samples.

Linked with the tree fern genus Osmundacaulis Classostrobus[12] C. elliotii Carapace Nunatak Five permineralized pollen cones A member of the Cheirolepidiaceae.

Recent research has reinterpreted it a stem group of the Polypodiales (Closely related with the extant genera Dennstaedtia, Lindsaea, and Odontosoria).

A genus with Resemblance with the extant Dacrydium that was referred to Podocarpaceae, yet a more recent work found it to be just a convergently evolved relative of Telemachus.