Cretaceous taphrogeny in the Coral Sea

Abstract

Although the normal mode of rift margin development involves a long period of taphrogenesis prior to separation of the continental blocks, the search for evidence of this stage in the history of the Coral Sea is largely fruitless. What evidence is available is regarded as ambiguous. We further investigate this problem by magnetic modelling of the continent-ocean boundary and by examining the subsidence history of the Queensland Plateau and find little to support the idea of Cretaceous taphrogenesis.