Glacigene Permian sediments and associated striated pavements of Victoria - An historical review

Colonial geologists in Victoria recognised particular styles of unsorted conglomerates and sandstones in outcrop resembling ones that they had previously observed in Pleistocene sediments in the northern hemisphere. During the 19th century, the Victorian sediments were thought to have been produced by marine glacial, grounded iceberg action and their age was variously believed to be Pleistocene, Mesozoic or Palaeozoic. Palaeontological evidence led ultimately to the wide acceptance of a Late Palaeozoic age for the sediments. Apart from sedimentary glacial debris in outcrop, further evidence of the Palaeozoic ice age is preserved in central Victoria in the forms of roches moutonnées, glaciated pavements on Ordovician bedrock, erratics and striated pebbles and boulders. Current geological belief is that an extensive, land-based ice sheet produced a glacial period in Victoria over a period of about 5 million years during the Asselian/Sakmarian stages of the Early Permian.