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This study investigates the prospectivity for porphyry Cu mineralisation of the early Paleozoic Loch Lilly-Kars Belt, which follows the southern margin of the Paleoproterozoic Broken Hill (Willyama) Inlier in western New South Wales, Australia. The belt is thought to have resulted from the 515–510 Ma collision of a volcanic passive margin and an intra-oceanic island arc above a west-dipping subduction zone, with subsequent post-collisional magmatism. To identify fertility signals of selected magmatic intrusive rocks, we combined whole-rock analyses with in-situ zircon trace-element and isotopic measurements. Data reveal that both Cambrian (ca 496 Ma) and Devonian (ca 393 Ma) intrusive suites are present in the Loch Lilly-Kars Belt. Cambrian dioritic rocks are largely non-fertile for porphyry Cu mineralisation, whereas Devonian monzodiorites and monzonitic porphyries carry strong fertility signals that include high whole-rock Sr/Y (>35) and V/Sc (>10) values, associated with the occurrence of equant, stubby zircons showing relatively constant Eu/Eu* values without any significant Eu anomalies. Although only few samples were analysed and more intensive exploration is required, the results of this study indicate significant potential for porphyry Cu mineralisation in this poorly known belt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

U-Pb dating and Hf-isotope provenance analysis of detrital zircons from the glaciogenic lower Permian Grant Group of the Canning Basin indicate sources principally from basement terranes in central Australia, with subordinate components from terranes to the south and north. Integrating these data with field outcrop and subsurface evidence for ice sheets, including glacial valleys and striated pavements along the southern and northern margins of the basin, suggests that continental ice sheets extended over several Precambrian upland areas of western and central Australia during the late Paleozoic ice age (LPIA). The youngest zircons constrain the maximum age for contemporaneous ice sheet development to the late Carboniferous (Kasimovian), whereas palynology provides a minimum age of early Permian (Asselian-Sakmarian). Considering the palynological age of the Grant Group within the context of regional and global climate proxies, the main phase of continental ice sheet growth was possibly in the Ghzelian-Asselian. The presence of ice sheets older than Kasimovian in western and central Australia remains difficult to prove given a regional gap in deposition possibly covering the mid-Bashkirian to early Ghzelian within the main depocentres and even larger along basin margins, and the poor evidence for older Carboniferous glacial facies. There is also no evidence for extensive glacial facies younger than mid-Sakmarian in this region as opposed to eastern Australia where the youngest regional glacial phase was Guadalupian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]