38 T. W. E. DAVID. 



The heavy fracture known as the Elderslee Fault, west 

 of Branxton, has a throw to the west of perhaps 5,000 feet. 1 

 Its trend is at its southern end N. and S. (true), and north 

 of the Hunter River N. 9° W. (true). The strata in this 

 part of the coal basin are thrown into a series of broad 

 synclines and anticlines whose axes trend a little W. of N. 

 and E. of S. Their steeper sides face inland, as though the 

 pressure came from the direction of the Pacific Ooast and 

 pushed the strata in towards the subsidence region of the 

 great coal basin. Thus there is evidence of a crustal creep 

 towards the coal basin, but along hinges of folding which 

 have an orientation intermediate between that of the long 

 axis of the coal basin and the trend of the coast line. It 

 is the evidence of the new pressure lines, (which eventually 

 merged into the epeirogenic uplift which eventually formed 

 our coast line and Main Divide) beginning to assert them- 

 selves. The principal lines of faulting in late Tertiary and 

 Post Tertiary time, mapped chiefly on physiographic evid- 

 ence have been ably described by Messrs. E. 0. Andrews, 2 

 O. A. Siissmilch, 3 and T. Griffith Taylor. 4 These faults in 

 the Monaro tableland are not parallel to the coast line but 

 diverge some 25° to 30° from it. The trend of these frac- 

 tures is mostly between N. 5° W. and N. 10° W. (true). 

 But in the case of the fault scarp to the east of the Gourock 

 Range Mr. Andrews shows this as being parallel to the 

 coast. In the New England tableland the fractures on 

 either side of the axis of granitic upheaval, as far as they 

 have been traced, trend somewhat W. of N. following near 

 to the direction of folds in the older rocks. The newest 



1 Geological Map of the Hunter River Coal-field, Geol. Survey, Dept. 

 of Mines, Sydney. 



8 This Society's Journal, Vol. xliv, pp. 420 - 480. 

 3 Ibid., Vol. xliit, pp. 331-354, pis. ix-xii. 



* Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S. Wales, 1907, Vol. xxxn, p. 327; also Common- 

 wealth Bureau of Meteorology, Bulletin No. 6 ,1910, " The Physiography 

 of the Proposed Federal Territory at Canberra," 



