AUSTRALASIA, NEW GUINEA, AND NEW ZEALAND 775 



All of these Australasian deposits are intimately related to strong 

 movements of folding, accompanied by intrusions of very siliceous 

 granite. 



No molybdenite, bismuth, wolfram, nor tin of any commercial 

 importance whatever appears to have been found in New Guinea, 

 New Caledonia, or New Zealand, although molybdenite and allied 

 minerals have been recorded as curiosities in older Paleozoic granites 

 in New Zealand. Neither are there in New Zealand any important 

 copper deposits similar to those which are so intimately associated 

 with the gold, tin, and molybdenite in Australasia. 



CONCLUSION 



It is therefore permissible, perhaps, to infer that each of the 

 three great groups, namely Australia, New Guinea, and New 

 Zealand, is a distinct geological province, but whereas in New 

 Guinea the movements appear to have opposed the Australian 

 growth with a tendency to fill the intervening negative area ; on the 

 other hand the growth of Australasia and New Zealand appears to 

 have been intimately related in some manner, as though each had 

 grown sympathetically in response to some simultaneous dominat- 

 ing agency. The folding action ceased in the Australasian area 

 long before it did so in the New Zealand area. The foldings in 

 New Guinea also were maintained right into recent geological 

 time. 



Here again the ore deposits proclaim the independence of the 

 three centers. The oil fields of New Guinea suggest the Burmese 

 or Malaysian origin of the New Guinea lines of structure, 1 and in a 

 similar way the tin-wolfram-molybdenite-bismuth group of miner- 

 als appears to mark the real limits of Australasia. A little of the 

 molybdenite group occurs in the New Zealand area, in the very old 

 rocks, but the group as a whole, with its grand suite of siliceous 

 granite horsts, may be said to end at the east side of Australasia. 

 Moreover, as the folding movements retreated east and west, with 

 progress of time they appear to have passed away finally to the 

 northeast from Southwestern Australia toward New Caledonia. 



X T. W. E. David, "Geology of Papua" (Federal Handbook), Brit. Assoc. Adv. 

 Sci. Australia, 1914, p. 320. 



