Exhumation of late Paleozoic blueschists in Queensland, Australia, by extensional faulting

Blueschists in southeastern Queensland, Australia, record a Carboniferous history of subduction and metamorphism at >6 kbar. A later thermal overprint associated with intrusion of S type granitoids ca. 306 Ma and regional greenschist facies metamorphism accompanied formation of ductile fabrics in the lower plate of an oceanic-protolith metamorphic core complex. Late Carboniferous extensional deformation in this part of the New England orogen may have accompanied outstepping of the subduction trench, or rollback and steepening of the paleo-Pacific plate during development of a wide zone of asthenospheric upwelling and continental back-arc extension.