172 THE BUILDING OF EASTERN AUSTRALIA 



It has bee^ suggested that in the Permo-Carboniferous 

 and early Mesozoic periods the Continent extended far 

 into the present Pacific Ocean, and may have been con- 

 nected both Avith Fiji and Antarctica or Xew Zealand. 

 [22, C. Hedley, A.A.A.S., 1909.] 



These extensions have been taken away again by 

 faulting. 



It should be here mentioned in explanation of the 

 distinctive nature of the West Australian flora, that 

 although all our late Permian and Mesozoic sediments 

 are of a epi- continental nature that is formed in epi-con- 

 tinental seas. Western Australia had, prior to the Tertiary 

 period, very little land connection with eastern portions 

 of the Continent. 



The present appearance of the eastern coast of 

 Australia is in many parts that of a strongly faulted coast- 

 line. As shown by Sussmilch, the Southern Tablelands 

 of N.S.W. [11] constitute a blockfaulted peneplain. I 

 have myself corroborated faulting of this kind by 

 describing instances in the country west of Jervis Bay. [17] 



A further and more striking example was seen on a 

 later visit to the Bega district. The Bega coastal district 

 is separated from the Monaro Tableland by a linear though 

 facetted fault ^scarp, which has downthrown the eastern 

 block about 1,500 feet relative to the Monaro block. The 

 topography is identical on the coastal plain and Monaro 

 Tableland. This fault scarp runs parallel with the Con- 

 tinental shelf, and it is more than likely that some of our 

 steep declivities on the Contine^ital shelf are similar, but 

 submerged, fault scarps. 



E. C. Andrews has given a very complete account of 

 Tertiary faulting [1]. 



Mountain Ranges and Direction of Folding. 

 As already stated, Andrews has regarded the con- 

 vexity of the Australian coast towards the Pacific as 

 evidence of folding towards that deep. The veteran 

 geologist, Suess, has drawn similar conclusions from the 

 curvature of mountain ranges, arguing that the East Asiatic 

 mountain festoons and island festoons indicate folding 

 towards the Pacific. Mr. C. Hedley has argued against 

 this view, and I think with ample justification that fold 

 mountains will tend to form a girdle round buffers or 



