The Carson-Hart Large Igneous Province intrusive complex: implications for Speewah-style vanadium-titanium-iron mineralization in the Kimberley region

The Hart Dolerite is the intrusive portion of the Carson-Hart Large Igneous Province (LIP; Hoatson et al., 2006; Tyler et al., 2006) in the Kimberley region of northern Western Australia. It forms a series of sills and some dykes that intrude the lower Kimberley Basin (King Leopold Sandstone and Carson Volcanics of the Kimberley Group) and the underlying Speewah Basin at a depth of 2-3 km beneath the eruptive surface. Although large areas of the Kimberley and Speewah Basins are underlain by the sills, they are particularly well exposed around the upturned and folded margins of the basins (Fig. 1). The mean U-Pb crystallization ages of zircon and baddeleyite obtained from the granophyre and upper mafic sills in the Hart Dolerite is 1797 ± 11 Ma (Sheppard et al. 2012).