Uncharted Permian to Jurassic continental deposits in the far north of Victoria Land, East Antarctica

The remote lower reaches of the Rennick Glacier in the far north of Victoria Land hold some of the least explored outcrop areas of the Transantarctic Basin. Following recent international field-work efforts in the Helliwell Hills, we here provide a comprehensive emendation to the regional stratigraphy. Results of geological and palaeontological reconnaissance and of petrographic, geochemical, and palynostratigraphic analyses reveal a stack of three previously unknown sedimentary units in the study area: the Early Triassic Van der Hoeven Formation (new unit, 115+ m thick) consists mainly of quartzose sandstone and non-carbonaceous mudstone rich in continental trace fossils. The Middle to Late Triassic Helliwell Formation (new unit, 235 m thick) consists of coal-bearing overbank deposits and volcaniclastic sandstone, and yielded typical plant fossils of the Gondwanan Dicroidium flora together with plant-bearing silicified peat. The succession is capped by c. 14 m of the sandstone-dominated Section Peak Formation (?latest Triassic–Early Jurassic). Our results enable more detailed correlation of the Palaeozoic–Mesozoic successions throughout East Antarctica and into Tasmania. Of particular interest is one section that spans the end-Permian mass extinction interval, which promises to allow detailed reconstructions of high-latitude vegetation dynamics across this critical interval in Earth History.