NOMEN
U
D
U
M
Number 31
Published December 2011
Association of Australasian Palaeontologists (AAP)
http//aap.gsa.org.au
Office Bearers 2010-2012
President: Prof. Guang Shi, Deakin University, Melbourne (grshi@deakin.edu.au)
Vice President: Dr Alex Cook, Queensland Museum, Brisbane
(alex.cook@qm.qld.gov.au)
Honorary Secretary: Dr Liz Weldon, Deakin University, Melbourne
(eweldon@deakin.edu.au)
Treasurer and Webmaster: Dr Rolf Schmidt, Museum Victoria, Melbourne
(rschmidt@museum.vic.gov.au)
Editor, Alcheringa (published by Taylor & Francis): Dr Stephen McLoughlin, Swedish
Museum of Natural History, Stockholm (steve.mcloughlin@nrm.se)
Editor, AAP Memoirs: Dr John Laurie, Geoscience Australia, Canberra
(John.Laurie@ga.gov.au)
Editor, Nomen nudum: Dr Ian Percival, Geological Survey of NSW, Sydney
(ian.percival@industry.nsw.gov.au)
Nomen nudum is the newsletter of the Association of Australasian Palaeontologists
(AAP), a Specialist Group of the Geological Society of Australia, Inc. Nomen nudum is
supplied as a service to members of AAP, and is available on the AAP website.
Nomen nudum is published to acquaint members with the activities of palaeontological
colleagues and with any other items of current interest. Enquiries and contributions
should be directed to the editor (contact details above).
Membership of AAP (including personal subscription to the Association’s peer-reviewed
international palaeontological journal Alcheringa), is available to all palaeontologists
(professional, amateur, active and retired), particularly – but certainly not restricted to –
those with interests in fossils of Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea. Details
of membership requirements, categories and fees are available from the Geological
Society of Australia website, which also has information regarding titles and prices of the
AAP Memoirs series (42 volumes published since 1983). Library subscriptions to
Alcheringa should be addressed to Taylor & Francis (www.tandf.co.uk/alcheringa).
Opinions expressed in this newsletter are those of individual contributors and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the Association of Australasian Palaeontologists nor the
Geological Society of Australia, Inc. Mention of a product or service should not be
construed as constituting endorsement by either organisation.
Front cover: S element of the conodont Paracordylodus gracilis, preserved in chert of
Early Ordovician (Floian) age from Sussex 1:100 000 sheet, NE of Cobar, central New
South Wales. Specimen is approximately 0.3 mm in width.
© Association of Australasian Palaeontologists, December 2011.
ISSN
2
TABLE OF CONTENTS
President’s Message ……………………………………………………… Page 4
AAP News
Revised sizes & formats for Alcheringa & AAP Memoirs ..………. Page 6
Recently-published AAP Memoirs ………………………...……… Page 7
Conference Announcements
34th International Geological Congress, Brisbane (August, 2012) … Page 10
Book review
Dinosaurs in Australia (reviewed by Sue Turner) ………………... Page 12
Obituaries
Graeme Philip ……………………..……………………………… Page 15
Peter Molloy …………………………………………………….. Page 16
Reports of Research Activities (by region and institution/company)
Australian Capital Territory ………………………………………
New South Wales …………………………………………………
Queensland ………………………………………………………
South Australia ……………………………………………….........
Victoria ……………………………………………………………
Western Australia …………………………………………………
New Zealand ………………………………………………………
Denmark ……………………………………………………….…..
Sweden ……………………………………………………………
United Kingdom ……………………………………………………
United States ………………………………………………………
Page 18
Page 19
Page 31
Page 35
Page 43
Page 52
Page 55
Page 63
Page 64
Page 73
Page 75
Contact details for contributors to this issue (alphabetical) …………… Page 79
3
PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
Dear Members and colleagues,
I am pleased to provide you with a brief report about AAP activities covering the
period since I became the President in February 2010.
1. AAP Mission statement
“The AAP is a specialist group of the Geological Society of Australia for
palaeontologists. As a professional association of scientists and educators, AAP
supports research and publication in the broad fields of systematic palaeontology,
palaeobiology and biostratigraphy; promotes professional development and
education; and encourages and facilitates communication among palaeobiologists,
professionals of related disciplines and anyone who is genuinely interested in the
discovery, preservation, conservation and study of fossils.”
In 2010 the AAP Executive developed and refined the above mission statement to
clearly define the purpose and aims of the AAP, identify the members of the
Association, and provide a guide for more strategic decision making.
2. AAP Publications
On the publication front the AAP has been particularly busy. I initiated a new AAP
Field Guide Series early in 2010 and subsequently there have been three publications.
Hard copies of the AAP Field Guide Series are available from the Geological
Society of Australia's bookshop website at http://gsa.org.au/publications/index.html.
Since the beginning of 2010, four new AAP Memoirs have been published and issues
are progressively becoming available online at
http://search.informit.com.au/browseJournalTitle;res=IELHSS;issn=0810-8889.
Thank you to our editor-in-chief John Laurie and his assistant editors for various
Memoirs. The high quality of international research being continually published in the
Memoirs series has led to its inclusion in the abstract and citation index Scopus
(Elsevier).
Thanks are also due to Steve McCLoughlin, editor of Alcheringa, and our publishers,
Taylor and Francis, who along with authors have influenced the journal’s significant
increase in its 2010 Journal Citation Report Impact Factor from 0.851 to 1.578. Taylor
and Francis’ publishing contract has been renewed for another five years, and next
year we will see the journal increase its layout to A4 size. Members are advised to
consult the new guide to authors available on the publisher’s website at
http://www.informaworld.com/talc, prior to submitting papers to Alcheringa.
3. AAP Finance and Memberships
Financially the AAP is in a relatively stable and strong position. AAP supported a
number of symposia held in Australia in the last two years. In 2010 we made a
contribution to the 6th International Brachiopod Congress held in Melbourne. This
year (2011) AAP also supported the International Congress on Carboniferous and
4
Permian held in Perth. In 2012, AAP plans to support a number of palaeobiologyrelated symposia during the 34th International Geological Congress in Brisbane.
Membership of the Association has remained in the range of 160-170 individual
members between 2008 and 2011. This is a significant increase from a low of 128 in
2007. On top of this, we also have attracted some corporate memberships. We hope to
see the membership figure grow further, and following discussion at the last AGM,
we have made some changes to the application process to highlight that membership
of the AAP can be independent of membership to the GSA. This is particularly
relevant to colleagues who may already be members of the Geoscience Society of
New Zealand, or who come from a biological background. Please renew your
membership for 2012 and I encourage you to invite a colleague or student to join.
4. Next AAP General meeting
We plan to hold the AAP's next General Meeting during the 34th International
Geological Congress to be held in Brisbane in August 2012. Details of this AGM will
be posted closer to the date.
Finally a special thanks to Ian Percival - it is great to see Nomen Nudum being
published again and on a regular basis. I hope to read contributions from you, our
members, in this and subsequent issues. If you have any ideas on how we might
continue to meet our Association’s objectives I would love to hear from you. Also, if
you have not yet done so, I would like to invite you to visit AAP's website at:
http://aap.gsa.org.au. The site provides the basic information about the Association,
its Executive, links and its publications.
Best wishes.
Prof. Guang R. Shi
President, Association of Australasian Palaeontologists
School of Life and Environmental Sciences
Deakin University,
Melbourne, Australia
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5
AAP NEWS
REVISED SIZES & FORMATS for ALCHERINGA & AAP MEMOIRS
From the first issue of Volume 36 in 2012, Alcheringa is expanding its format to A4
size with a page area equivalent to that of the Australian Journal of Earth Sciences.
This change will affect the maximum sizes for Figures, with a new full page width of
169 mm and a maximum page height of 242 mm. Please refer to the Alcheringa
website for further details, including submission of manuscripts electronically.
AAP Memoirs is also changing size to A4, although this will be phased in over the
next few volumes. This transition period will allow authors who already have
volumes in the pipeline (i.e. those agreed to by editor John Laurie) to maintain their
illustration formats. New submissions must accord with the revised instructions
(below – note particularly the highlighted section with new figure sizes).
REVISED INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS – AAP MEMOIRS
Submission
Manuscripts are to be sent to the Editor as e-mail attachments, on CD or DVD as a
word-processing file (preferably Microsoft Word). Double space all text and number
all pages. In covering e-mail give the names and addresses of two persons outside the
authors’ institutions who are expert in the topic covered by the submitted paper and
can act as referees. Illustrations should be similarly submitted, preferably in Adobe
Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, PDF, high-resolution JPEG or TIFF format. Tables
should not be included in the text, but submitted as separate graphics or EXCEL files.
Format
Papers are to be written in clear, concise English and should be illustrated.
Manuscripts are to be organised as follows: 1, a brief title with only proper names
capitalised. 2, name(s) of author(s). 3, full reference to the paper, leaving space for the
publisher’s additions. 4, a short abstract describing the results of the work. 5, name(s)
of author(s) with e-mail address(es), full postal address(es) including postcode and
country. 6, the main text; capitalise the first word of the first paragraph; do not use the
heading ‘Introduction’; begin other sections with not more than three grades of
heading as follows:
GRADE ONE HEADING
Grade two heading
Grade three heading. This is followed by running text; refer to references in the text
as Smith (1978), (Smith 1978) or Smith (1978, p. 25) and to illustrations as ‘Figure’
or ‘Figures’; all measurements are to be in S.I. units; footnotes are not allowed; group
all acknowledgements at the end and keep them brief. 7, references should conform to
the examples below; give the full title of the publication; do not use abbreviations for
the journal title; transliterate Russian titles using the system adopted by the Treatise
on Invertebrate Paleontology. 8, figure captions should be compiled at the end of the
text, after the references and any appendices.
6
Illustrations
Illustrations should be grouped into Figures of one or two column width (83 mm or
170 mm), with a maximum height of 240 mm. Attempt to restrict each figure to one
theme and make sure photographs are of similar tone. Line drawings may be
combined with photographs if required. The items of composite figures should be
designated A, B, C etc. (not a, b, c).
The Memoirs will not print foldouts and extending figures or tables over more than
one page is discouraged. Tables should either be drafted at one or two column width
(88 mm or 180 mm) or presented as EXCEL files.
REFERENCES
Campbell, K.S.W. & McKellar, R.G., 1969. Eastern Australian Carboniferous
invertebrates. 77-119 in Campbell, K.S.W. (ed.), Stratigraphy and palaeontology.
Essays in honour of Dorothy Hill. Australian National University Press, Canberra
Roberts, J., Hunt, J.W. & Thompson, D.M., 1976. Late Carboniferous marine
invertebrate zones of eastern Australia. Alcheringa 1, 197-225.
Stepanov, D.L., 1937. Permskie brakhiopody Shpitsbergena. Trudy Arkticheskii
Instituta 76, 105-192.
Laseron, C.F., 1954. Ancient Australia. Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 210 p.
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RECENT AAP PUBLICATIONS
Shi, G.R., Weldon, E.A., Percival, I.G., Pierson, R.R. & Laurie, J.R. (eds), 2011.
Brachiopods: extant and extinct – Proceedings of the Sixth International Brachiopod
Congress, 1-5 February, 2010, Melbourne, Australia. Memoirs of the Association of
Australasian Palaeontologists 41, 366p.
CONTENTS
Yuta Shiino & Osamu Kuwazuru: Comparative experimental and simulation study on
passive feeding flow generation in Cyrtospirifer
Uwe Brand, Alan Logan, Maria Aleksandra Bitner, Erika Griesshaber, Karem Azmy &
Dieter Buhl: What is the ideal proxy for Palaeozoic seawater chemistry?
Jeffrey H. Robinson & Daphne E. Lee: Spine formation in Novocrania and Danocrania
(Brachiopoda, Craniata)
Dietrich Schumann: Growth rates of Calloria inconspicua (Sowerby, 1846) from the upper
intertidal zone of Portobello, New Zealand
Elizabeth M. Harper: What do we really know about predation on modern
rhynchonelliforms?
Norton Hiller: Affinities and associations of new shallow-water brachiopods from the Late
Cretaceous of New Zealand
Lucia Angiolini, Sarah Long & Lee Davies: Revision of Sowerby’s species Spirifer
bisulcatus, Spirifer pinguis and Spirifer rotundatus from the late Tournaisian-Visean of Great
Britain
Arturo C. Taboada & Guang R. Shi: Taxonomic review and evolutionary trends of
Levipustulini and Absenticostini (Brachiopoda) from Argentina: Palaeobiogeographic and
palaeoclimatic implications
Mena Schemm-Gregory: The howellellid branches within the delthyridoid spiriferids
(Brachiopoda, Silurian to Devonian)
Alberto Pérez-Huerta, David A.T. Harper & Teresa E. Jeffries: Preliminary data on shell
cementation in fossil specimens of thecideide brachiopods
7
L.Robin M. Cocks: There’s no place like home: Cambrian to Devonian brachiopods
critically useful for analysing palaeogeography
Donald A.B. MacFarlan, Fauzie Hasibuan & Jack A. Grant-Mackie: Mesozoic
brachiopods of Misool Archipelago, eastern Indonesia
Fernando Alvarez, Tatyana L. Modzalevskaya & Covadonga Brime: Early Devonian
diversification of athyridide brachiopods in the Cantabrian Zone (NW Spain) and their
affinities, revisited
Anthony E. Aldridge: Ontogenetic discontinuities in brachiopod populations: their detection
and significance
J. Bruce Waterhouse: Origin and evolution of Permian brachiopods of Australia
Alycia L. Stigall: Application of niche modelling to analyse biogeographic patterns in
Palaeozoic brachiopods: evaluating niche stability in deep time
Anthony E. Aldridge & Danièle Gaspard: Brachiopod life histories from spiral deviations
in shell shape and microstructural signature – preliminary report
Alexey V. Pakhnevich: The type specimens of the Holocene brachiopod Diestothyris
frontalis (Middendorff, 1849)
Renbin Zhan, Rongyu Li, Ian G. Percival & Yan Liang: Brachiopod biogeographic
change during the Early to Middle Ordovician in South China
Lars E. Holmer, Christian B. Skovsted, Glenn A. Brock & Leonid Popov: An early
Cambrian chileate brachiopod from South Australia and its phylogenetic significance
Alfréd Dulai: Late Eocene (Priabonian) micromorphic brachiopods from the Upper Austrian
Molasse Zone
Gabriela A. Cisterna: Morphology and systematics of Late Palaeozoic syringothyrid
brachiopods from West-Central Argentina
Danièle Gaspard: Endolithic algae, fungi and bacterial activity in Holocene and Cretaceous
brachiopod shells – diagenetic consequences
M. Alejandra Pagani & Arturo C. Taboada: The Cisuralian faunal succession in Patagonia
(Tepuel-Genoa Basin, Argentina): an updated brachiopod biostratigraphic scheme
Michal Mergl: Reassessment of the Ordovician brachiopod Poramborthis and
Poramborthidae
Liisa Lang, Ethel Uibopuu & Ivar Puura : Nanostructures in Palaeozoic linguloid
brachiopods
********************************************
Laurie, J.R., Paterson, J.R. & Brock, G.A. (eds), 2011. Cambro-Ordovician Studies
IV. Memoirs of the Association of Australasian Palaeontologists 42, 492 p.
CONTENTS
Richard A. Fortey: The first known complete lichakephalid trilobite, Lower Ordovician of
Morocco
Loren E. Babcock: Exceptionally preserved Conchopeltis (Cnidaria) from the Ordovician of
New York, USA: taphonomic inferences
James B. Jago, Christopher J. Bentley & Roger A. Cooper: A Cambrian Series 3
(Guzhangian) fauna with Centropleura from Northern Victoria Land, Antarctica
Rebecca L. Freeman & James F. Miller: Lingulate brachiopods from the upper Cambrian
(Sunwaptan) Hellnmaria Member of the Notch Peak Formation, western Utah, USA
Zhou Zhiqiang, Zhou Zhiyi & Yuan Wenwei: Late Ordovician (Hirnantian) Mucronaspis
(Songxites)-dominant trilobite fauna from northwestern Zhejiang, China
Adrian W.A. Rushton: The mid-Cambrian (Drumian) centropleurid trilobite Luhops and its
relatives from the Abbey Shale Formation near Nuneaton, central England
Soo Yeun Ahn, Loren E. Babcock & J. Stewart Hollingsworth: Revised stratigraphic
nomenclature for parts of the Ediacaran-Cambrian Series 2 succession in the southern Great
Basin, USA
8
M. Franco Tortello: Late middle Cambrian trilobites from El Totoral, Mendoza, Argentina
Loren E. Babcock, Shanchi Peng, Gregory J. Wasserman & Richard A. Robison:
Exceptionally preserved biota from a carbonate lithofacies, Huaqiao Formation (Cambrian:
Drumian Stage), Hunan, China
Olaf Elicki: First skeletal microfauna from the Cambrian Series 3 of the Jordan Rift Valley
(Middle East)
Lee Ann Hally: The Cambrian trilobite Rhyssometopus, with taxonomic revision of
Guzhangian species from Queensland, Australia
Leonid E. Popov, Mansoureh Ghobadi Pour, Mohammad Reza Kebria-Ee Zadeh &
Saeid Shahbeik: First record of silicified Cambrian (Furongian) rhynchonelliform
brachiopods from the Mila Formation, Alborz Range, Iran
Stephen R. Westrop & Ed Landing: Lower Cambrian (Branchian) eodiscoid trilobites from
the lower Brigus Formation, Avalon Peninsula, Newfoundland, Canada
Mansoureh Ghobadi Pour, Leonid E. Popov, Mohammad Reza Kebria-Ee Zadeh &
Christian Baars: Middle Ordovician (Darriwilian) brachiopods associated with the
Neseuretus biofacies, eastern Alborz Mountains, Iran
Yong Yi Zhen, Roger A. Cooper, John E. Simes & Ian G. Percival: Darriwilian (Middle
Ordovician) conodonts from the Maruia-Springs Junction area, New Zealand
Jonathan M. Adrain, Neo E.B. McAdams & Stephen R. Westrop: Affinities of the Lower
Ordovician (Tulean; lower Floian) trilobite Gladiatoria, with species from the Great Basin,
western United States
Jonathan M. Adrain, Neo E.B. McAdams, Stephen R. Westrop & Talia S.
Karim: Systematics and affinity of the Lower Ordovician (Tulean; lower Floian) trilobite
Psalikilopsis
James D. Loch & John F. Taylor: New symphysurinid trilobites from the CambrianOrdovician boundary interval in the western United States
Yong Yi Zhen, John R. Laurie & Robert S. Nicoll: Cambrian and Ordovician stratigraphy
and biostratigraphy of the Arafura Basin, offshore Northern Territory
Ian G. Percival, John E. Simes, Roger A. Cooper & Yong Yi Zhen: Middle Ordovician
linguliformean brachiopods from the Maruia-Springs Junction area, New Zealand
These and previously published AAP Memoirs are available from the Geological
Society of Australia, Inc. See the GSA homepage: www.gsa.org.au for details of
prices and postage.
9
FORTHCOMING CONFERENCES
34th INTERNATIONAL GEOLOGICAL CONGRESS
BRISBANE, QUEENSLAND, August 5-10 2012
The major palaeontological focus for the IGC will be Theme 23: Evolution of the
Biosphere, being coordinated by John Laurie (Australia) and Andrew Knoll (USA).
Individual Symposia planned under the umbrella of this Theme are listed below,
together with their convenors to whom enquiries should be addressed.
Further details of all aspects of the IGC are to be found at www.34igc.org
Deadline for abstract submission is February 17, 2012.
23.1 Martin Glaessner Symposium: The Ediacaran and the Cambrian Explosion
Convenors: John Laurie john.laurie@ga.gov.au (Australia), Glenn Brock
(Australia) and Guy Narbonne (Canada)
Martin Glaessner (1906-1989) was professor of palaeontology and geology at the
University of Adelaide and did much early work on the Ediacaran biota. This
Symposium aims to cover the differences and similarities between the Ediacaran biota
and that characterised by the explosive diversification during the early and middle
Cambrian.
23.2 John Talent Symposium: Palaeozoic biofacies, biogeography and bioevents
Convenors: Ian Percival ian.percival@industry.nsw.gov.au (Australia), Tony
Wright (Australia) and Guang Shi (Australia)
John Talent was the first president of the International Palaeontological Association
and this Symposium celebrates the breadth of his extensive palaeontological
contributions. These extend from the Ordovician to Carboniferous and papers
covering this broad interval are welcome.
23.3 Evolution of hominins
Convenors: Colin Groves colin.groves@anu.edu.au (Australia), Chris Stringer
(Australia) and Darren Curnoe (Australia)
This Symposium will cover all aspects of the evolution and distribution of extant and
extinct members of the Tribe Hominini.
23.4 General palaeontology
Convenors: Alex Cook alex.cook@qm.qld.gov.au (Australia) and Alexander
Nutzel (Germany)
This will cover all aspects of palaeontology not covered by other Symposia,
especially new discoveries, new interpretations and new techniques.
23.5 Oxygen and evolution
Convenors: Andrew Knoll aknoll@oeb.harvard.edu (USA) and Jochen Brocks
(Australia)
In modern environments, oxygen availability sharply constrains the distributions of
many species. Thus, we can hypothesise that changes through time in oxygen levels in
the atmosphere and oceans have influenced the course of evolution. This Symposium
will cover all aspects of the effects of oxygen on the evolution of life, from the advent
of oxic environments some 2.4 Ga to the current expansion of marine dead zones.
10
23.6 Proterozoic life
Convenors: Kathleen Grey kath.grey@dmp.wa.gov.au (Australia) and Stanley
Awramik (USA)
At the beginning of the Proterozoic there were few, if any eukaryotes, but by the end
of the eon the first metazoan had appeared and life had begun to invade the land. This
Symposium aims to cover all that happened in the interim. In contrast to the rest of
the Proterozoic, there is considerable data on the Cryogenian and Ediacaran that is
promising for global correlation and that will impact on decisions about stratigraphic
boundaries. An overview of the Proterozoic as a whole is timely.
23.7 Gondwanan Mesozoic vertebrates
Convenors: Benjamin Kear benjamin.kear@geo.uu.se (Sweden) and Thomas Rich
(Australia)
The Mesozoic vertebrates of the Gondwanan continents had a Pangaean heritage, but
with the separation of Gondwana from Laurasia during the Mesozoic, the vertebrates
on Gondwana developed a distinctive character. This Symposium aims to cover all
aspects of this evolutionary trajectory.
23.8 Mesozoic bioevents
Convenors: David Haig david.haig@uwa.edu.au (Australia), Stephen McLoughlin
(Sweden) and Mikael Siversson (Australia)
The Mesozoic was bracketed by the two largest extinction events ever to have
befallen life on earth and the modern biota still reflects the winners and losers of those
events. However, there are many more subtle events within the Mesozoic, the results
of which are still evident. This Symposium aims to cover those events.
23.9 Origin and evolution of marsupials
Convenors: Michael Archer m.archer@unsw.edu.au (Australia) and Suzanne
Hand (Australia)
It would be a glaring omission for the IGC not to contain a Symposium on the
evolution of the marsupials, given that it is being held in the continent where
marsupials dominate the native mammalian fauna. It aims to cover all aspects of their
origin and evolution.
23.10 Early vertebrate evolution
Convenor: Kate Trinajstic k.trinajstic@curtin.edu.au (Australia)
This Symposium aims to cover the early evolution of the vertebrates from their
apparent Cambrian origins through Palaeozoic agnathans and fishes, up to the origin
and early radiation of tetrapods. Papers on the biostratigraphy of vertebrates, the
interrelationships of different groups and the description of new forms are invited.
23.11 Cenozoic marine environments
Convenors: Stephen Gallagher sjgall@unimelb.edu.au (Australia) and Bridget
Wade (UK)
This Symposium is designed to cover the use of palaeontological data in the
understanding of palaeoceanography, palaeoecology, patterns of evolution and
extinction, temperature and sea level fluctuations, as well as global ice volume.
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11
Book Review (by Sue Turner, Queensland)
Dinosaurs in Australia: Mesozoic Life from the Southern Continent
Benjamin P. Kear, Robert J. Hamilton-Bruce, 2011, 190 pp, colour photos,
CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Vic: ISBN is 9780643100459; A$ 79.95.
This new book offers a new comprehensive review of Australia’s Mesozoic past in
the so-called “Age of dinosaurs”. The first thing that strikes the reader when viewing
the contents of this book by former and current South Australian Museum workers,
Ben Kear and Robert Hamilton-Bruce (Collection manager in marine invertebrates) is
that the title is a complete misnomer! This book offers a lot more than dinosaurs in
Australia and even more than Mesozoic biota. On top of all that Kear and HamiltonBruce actually take you on a journey through ‘deep time’ all the way from the
Archaean up to end-Cretaceous—you get your money’s worth! The definition, as the
title of the book, is somewhat nebulous and Kear and Hamilton-Bruce have attempted
a look not only at Australia’s dino/reptile fauna but other animal and plant life and
environments during the three major time periods when ‘dinosaurs’ were around—the
>200 Myr-span of Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous. Sites such as Rewan, Talbragar,
Dinosaur Cove, Coober Pedy, Lightning Ridge, Winton and the fossil trackways at
Broome get special mention. The authors show how new research in recent decades is
changing the way we perceive the time span and they emphasise that they have tried
to bring to the reader’s attention much that is ‘locked away’ in technical papers and
theses. This is a ‘Good Thing’ as a lot of work does get lost over the years especially
when only the few dramatic finds (usually dinosaurs, Biggest, Best, etc.) put forward
12
by the media-savvy get attention or makes the page (2 if you are lucky; mind you,
you can have lots more in supplementals these days…) of Nature and Science.
A long introduction provides a ‘hitchhikers guide’ to geology and fossil
preservation and how we palaeontologists identity and interpret the relationships of
the fossils we study. The body of the text in six chapters covers the era and reality of
dinosaurs in Australia from their beginnings in the Triassic until before the extinction
events. Most of the major discoveries in Australia in the recent decade are discussed
and put into context of their environments, and so plants, invertebrates and other
vertebrates, even a few evolving mammals alongside the dinosaurs are covered.
Unusual fossils such as opalised ones get good coverage.
Kear and Hamilton-Bruce concentrate on the Early Cretaceous marine and
nonmarine faunas and environmental changes and finish with ‘After the Ocean’ (i.e.
the draining of the inland sea) when life from the Late Cretaceous looks at the much
sparser post-Cenomanian record featuring new work in the Winton Formation of
Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
Did we need another book on all things dinosaurian? How does it compare
with the last “Big book”, the previous (e.g. 1998) review on dinosaurs of Australia
and New Zealand by John Long? Well, it is over half a decade since the last edition
and as with most books, longer since scientific material gets into print. Kear and
Hamilton-Bruce therefore provide a fresh look with a slightly wider remit that
Long’s. As noted in Tim Flannery’s foreword, there has been a significant increase in
both hunting time and research in the last decade or so and that the number of
Australian ‘saurian’ taxa is beginning to rise (into double figures…) and Kear is one
of those at the ‘rock-face’ with work especially on marine reptiles since his doctorate.
Over the last few decades as well, our understanding of what Australia was like
during the Mesozoic Era has also been changing with the position of Australia well
south in the cold temperate to polar zone meaning that the dinosaurs and other forms
had to endure and adapt to often frozen times. New fossil discoveries, together with
some new analytical techniques, have been incorporated.
‘Dinosaurs in Australia’ is aimed at both the technical reader and the layman
and the text is concise and easy to read. The book is nicely illustrated in color
throughout, although sadly the photos lack a scale bar in most cases (a few show
some means of scale such as a person or a museum label in place), with three doublepage spread original artworks and 12 original reconstructions of key animals, which I
presume are all by Josh Lee (it’s not clear from the text); they are fine and I
particularly like the ichthyosaur frontispiece, Platypterygius australis in its dolphinlike livery (unidentified but repeated on p. 91) and Rhoetosaurus (p. 71, nice colour
scheme). However, the artworks are not captioned (was it done deliberately to make
us seek?); the plate opposite the acknowledgements, those on p.22, p. 56
(Rhoetosaurus foot bones), p. 74 (?ribs), Muttaburrasaurus (p. 104, by comparison
with the real thing on p. 125), p. 136 (shell), and opposite p. 1 are not, nor again is
there any useful scale given. The centre-page spread (pp. 68-69 plesiosaurs
underwater) and another are signed “Josh” to give us a clue. The eye-catching front
cover is another original (also by Josh Lee?) giving a rendition of the 110 Ma
Cretaceous landscape of Lightning Ridge with a group of dromaeosauriforms and
their young scavenging fish and turtle surrounded by araucarian forest. The
reconstructions, palaeogeographies and environmental interpretations are useful; one
help would be to put the Cretaceous palaeomap figures on pp 139 and 140 opposite
one another so that comparison would be easier.
13
Misleading are the photos of casts of dinosaur footprints shown on p. 5 with
chalk outlines, which do not actually match the reality (shades of poor attempts to
analyse footprints from photos using computer programs). Sad too is the perpetuating
of the ‘putative chordate’ myth of one Ediacaran fossil with no back-up explanation –
this sort of thing can go like wildfire on the internet and leads to bad practice such as
the total acceptance of false data. Some of the original artwork is very nicely done but
again no scale and often no explanation (p. 22 skull) and no reconstructions of key
animals.
But for me what is missing are the people—because the characters who dig up
the fossils in this continent past and present make the story (I only found
palaeontologists in about 6 photos and there is no picture of the authors even in the
blurb). My own search for missing women (e.g. Turner et al. 2010) shows how easy it
is to divorce people from the stories. That’s where Long’s text is a little more lively
and better still go to the Rich’s (2003) dinosaur history book.
A well-put together book by CSIRO Publishing (www.publish.csiro.au), the
paper is forest-friendly but the price is a bit steep for a paperback (will it last?) but an
eBook version is available and discounting on the Internet has begun.
Kear and Hamilton-Bruce’s book will be a useful overview for senior
undergraduate to postgraduate students, secondary and tertiary teachers, as well as to
fossil collectors and anyone interested in natural history. It complements well the
earlier Oz dinosaur books on your bookshelf. A huge bibliography is included, which
rounds up this useful resource for serious researchers and laymen alike so that you
can fact-check for yourself.
References
Long, J. A. 1998. Dinosaurs of Australia and New Zealand and other animals of the
Mesozoic Era. University of NSW Press, Sydney, 188 pp.
Rich, T. H. & Vickers-Rich, P. 2003. A Century of Australian Dinosaur Collecting.
Queen Victoria Museum & Monash Science Centre, Australia, 124 pp.
Turner, S., Burek, C. & Moody, R.T. 2010. Forgotten women in an extinct Saurian
'mans' World. In: Moody, R.T., Buffetaut, E., Martill, D. & Naish, D. (eds.)
Dinosaurs and Other Extinct Saurians: A Historical Perspective. The Geological
Society, London, Special Publication, 343, 111-153. [with online appendix of
publications].
14
OBITUARY
Graeme Maxwell Philip (1933-2009)
Graeme Philip, who initially had worked on SE Australian Early Devonian
macrofaunas, authored or co-authored 20 papers on conodonts in the period 19651975, mostly on the taxonomy of Australian Early Devonian conodont faunas and
correlations indicated by them. Of special importance were three papers in the early
1970s co-authored with Gilbert Klapper, two of which (1971, 1972) concerned
multielement taxonomy; they were pioneering works at the root of the multielement
revolution in conodont taxonomy and classification. All were generated during his
rapid rise from lecturer to professor at the University of New England. In 1972, he
became Professor and Head of the Geology Department at Sydney University. By
then he had become a household name in the Australian palaeontological community,
but the pressures of administration tended to divert him away from conodont studies
into other directions including applications of statistics, notably to modelling coal
basins, computing ore reserves, and to a passion of his, the game of cricket and its
most prominent exponent, Sir Donald Bradman. He published a book on the last of
these (2004, Peripatus). In 1992 he took early retirement from the university and
launched into a new career in the business world.
Graeme’s name could strike terror into the cardiac area of many who came in
contact with him; he could project yacht-club airs; he could be whip-smart; he tried to
be outrageous and, perhaps too often, succeeded. But it was largely a pose. Graeme
had enormous energy and through it and his tenacity (maintained to the end: he died
of cancer) he achieved much. The Australian earth-science community has become
much less colourful with his passing.
John A. Talent, Macquarie University
Graeme Philip with his beloved abacus (photograph courtesy of Robyn Stutchbury)
15
Peter Molloy (1943–2011)
Peter Molloy was one of those who bravely joined the first intake of students at
Sydney’s Macquarie University in 1967 where he undertook a part-time BA degree in
Earth Sciences, graduating in 1971. He then undertook a part-time Masters degree,
struggling with what proved to be a non-project, trying to unravel the geological
history of the limestone-infested country about Portland, about 120 km northwest of
Sydney. During about 15 months, as a weekend activity, he combed the area
meticulously for limestones, taking samples and acid-leaching them. The result? Not a
single conodont. The Portland limestones are lenticular with very shallow-water
lithologies (massive or poorly-bedded; fenestral fabrics; occasionally dolomitic) in
flysch. Peter’s supervisor had never visited the area…
Fortunately, between late 1968 and 1973, I had amassed an extensive suite of
limestones, most of them stratigraphically collected, from various parts of northern
Pakistan: from sequences east and west of Peshawar and from various localities in
Chitral. Peter meticulously documented the various conodont faunas (Ordovician to
Triassic) and produced a superb thesis.
About two decades later, Ruth Mawson and I, who had been covert
supervisors of his MSc, encouraged Peter to apply for a doctoral scholarship,
specifically for mature-age students; his application was successful. He focused on the
earliest Middle Silurian Ireviken Event, brought to prominence by the inimitable
Lennart Jeppsson. An elegant sequence on ‘Kalinga’, at Boree Creek, northwest of
Orange, had been shown from conodont biostratigraphy by us, coupled with isotope
chemistry by Anita Andrew, to span the Llandovery–Wenlock boundary and thus the
Ireviken Global Extinction Event. Peter attacked the problem with gusto. The result?
Conodonts by the thousand! Peter produced an elegant and balanced thesis submitted
in 2006; it was received enthusiastically by all three examiners (all external). Peter’s
linkage with the magnanimous Lennart Jeppsson, the principal guru of Silurian global
events, had been pivotal; Lennart was a constant source of encouragement.
Peter co-authored seven significant papers and 14 abstracts about conodonts of
various ages and their implications for the geology of eastern Australia and northern
Pakistan. He is lead author of two other papers―one in press and another soon to be
submitted, both on the Ireviken Event. At the time he was undertaking his MSc he
was unable to do fieldwork in the now politically inaccessible Khyber region of
northern Pakistan, but relished subsequent opportunities to participate in fieldwork in
central Nepal, southern Thailand, in the Chitral and Nowshera regions of Pakistan,
and in various regions of Australia scattered from eastern Victoria to the Broken
River in northern Queensland. His boating skills were frequently crucial, especially
for sampling Silurian limestones in the Mitta Mitta River–Gibbo River–Wombat
Creek area of eastern Victoria.
Peter traveled twice with me to South Asia in 1997 and 2004, the principal
focus of both trips was the geology of north-western Pakistan. On our way back from
the first of these trips, we spent a couple of days in central Nepal where the notorious
charlatan, Prof. Vishwa Jit Gupta had reported various discoveries (all spurious) in the
mountains around the Kathmandu valley and had thereby done much damage to
understanding of the geology of that part of the Himalaya.
Peter relished contact with the ancient and colourful Kalash and the endlessly
hospitable Ismailis (both now under threat from the bombs of fundamentalists). The
main focus on both trips, however, was the rock sequences in Pakistan that had
provided the conodonts that enabled Peter to contribute significantly to improving
16
knowledge of the geological history of Pakistan’s far north-west. Peter enjoyed the
sound of an occasional mullah belting the Koran into small pupils, the rickety jeeps,
the sometimes bowel-shattering food, and collecting limestone samples from road
cuttings among the dramatic scenery of that region.
Peter was especially fond of palms. It seemed that he knew virtually every
species of palm in David L. Jones’s Palms Throughout the World. He was a chainsmoker and had lost part of a lung from cancer. He was diagnosed with liver cancer in
November 2010 but chemotherapy proved ineffectual. His fade out extended painfully
over nearly four months. He died on 8 March 2011 with his daughters Alexandra and
Elissa at his side. Symbolically, five small gifts were placed beside his rosewood
coffin, one by each of Peter’s two children and three grandchildren: a jar of instant
coffee, chocolate, a packet of Tim-Tams, a packet of chocolate-mint biscuits, and a
Diet Coke, all fundamental items in Peter’s life.
Peter was dedicated to the right and the good; he was able to make everyone
laugh at gentle jokes, usually on himself. He was courteous and generous to a fault—
it required, for instance, very subtle tactics to beat him to paying restaurant bills…
Peter was always kind, constant, considerate and correct―in short, he was utterly
simpatico.
John A. Talent
Vale Peter Molloy – a former editor of Nomen Nudum
17
REPORTS FROM CONTRIBUTORS
AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY
Geoscience Australia
John Laurie has had a busy year, in part comprising non-palaeontological editing
tasks for Geoscience Australia. With the success of the Geoscience Australia
Timewalk and guidebook, a larger, more detailed guidebook is at first draft stage and
will be compiled into a final volume sometime over the next year or so. In addition,
three revised Teacher Guides on ‘Fossils’, ‘Australia, an ancient continent’ and
‘Geological Time’ are being compiled for the Education Section at Geoscience
Australia; the first of these is nearing completion. These guides will be sent to all
primary schools throughout the country. The ‘Living Australia’ chapter for a book on
aspects of the effect of geology on Australia and its people, to be published by GA for
the Brisbane IGC in 2012, is nearing final submission. Two palaeontological papers
are in press, one with Bob Nicoll and Yong Yi Zhen on the early Palaeozoic
biostratigraphy of the Arafura Basin, and one with Jim Jago and Kim Bischoff on a
couple of unusual latest Cambrian trilobite faunules from southernmost Tasmania. In
addition, several chunks of Silurian Canberra Formation Limestone (from foundations
of a building in the city centre of Canberra) are being acid-etched in the hope of
getting a better conodont age for the unit.
Apart from his paid employment, John continues to compile and edit the AAP
Memoirs series. Most recently published (mid-2011) is the proceedings volume of the
International Brachiopod Congress held in Melbourne in early 2010 (AAP Memoir 41
‘Brachiopods: extant and extinct’). Yet another Cambro-Ordovician Studies volume
(the fourth; Memoir 42) has an expected publication date of very late 2011. A volume
on the Jurassic palynostratigraphy of the Surat Basin is currently being revised by the
author. Three more volumes are due for submission in the second half of 2011, for
publication in 2012; the frenzy continues.
Australian National University
Desmond Strusz (School Visitor, Earth & Marine Sciences (RSES), Australian
National University; and Research Associate, Australian Museum) submitted a paper
on the brachiopod fauna of the mid-Silurian Canberra Formation at Woolshed Creek
(near Duntroon, Canberra) to the Linnean Society of New South Wales. He is now
cooperating with Ian Percival (NSW Geological Survey) on the similar-age
brachiopod fauna from the Quidong area near Delegate in southern New South Wales.
He is also gradually transferring the remnants of his PhD Garra Formation collections
from Geoscience Australia to the NSW Survey at Londonderry - published specimens
were transferred to the Australian Museum when the University of Sydney discarded
its palaeontological thesis collections, some material has ended up in James Cook
University, while some unpublished material has probably been lost.
Des attended the July 2011 meeting of the International Subcommission on
Silurian Stratigraphy in Ludlow, where the main focus of attention was the state and
suitability of the various Shropshire-based type Stage and Series boundary locations.
All have problems, some quite serious (including extremely poor outcrop and
structural control), so it is possible some at least will have to be re-located.
18
Unfortunately the best place for many is Arctic Canada, but the logistics involved
there would preclude such a location.
Publications:
Strusz, D.L. 2010. Silurian brachiopod distribution in strata of the Canberra-Yass
region, southeastern Australia. Memoirs of the Association of Australasian
Palaeontologists 39, 147-158.
Strusz, D.L. 2011. Silurian brachiopods from the historic Woolshed Creek area,
Canberra, Australia. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 133,
31-49.
*********************************************************************
NEW SOUTH WALES
Australian Museum, Sydney
Yong Yi Zhen is working on the Ordovician conodonts from Australasia and China. In
2010-2011 he worked on the Middle-Late Ordovician conodont faunas from the Dawangou
Section (auxiliary stratotype for the base of the Upper Ordovician) of the Tarim Basin,
northwestern China in association with Zhang Yuandong and Wang Zhihao (both from
Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences), Stig
Bergström (Ohio State University) and Ian Percival (NSW Geological Survey). This semimonographic work will be published in late 2011 in the Records of the Australian Museum.
A manuscript describing a Darriwilian conodont fauna from New Zealand in cooperation
with Roger Cooper and John Simes from New Zealand, and Ian Percival has been accepted
for the AAP Memoir series (Cambro-Ordovician Studies IV). In 2009-2010 Yong Yi was
responsible for the relocation and management of the AM Palaeontology Collections. This
remarkable achievement in accommodating the fossil types (including the primary and
secondary types of over 900 palaeontological publications since 1838) and majority of the
general collections in the basement of the Parkes Farmer Wing of the museum’s main
building with new, quality storage facilities marked as one of the most important
milestones in the history of the Palaeontology Collections of the Australian Museum.
Publications in 2010-2011:
Zhen, Y.-y., Burrett, C.F., Percival, I.G. & Lin, B.Y., 2010. A Late Ordovician conodont
fauna from the Lower Limestone Member of the Benjamin Limestone in central
Tasmania, and revision of Tasmanognathus careyi Burrett, 1979. Proceedings of the
Linnean Society of New South Wales 131, 43-72.
Percival, I.G., Cooper, R.A., Zhen, Y.-y., Wright, A.J. & Simes, J.E., 2011. Recent
discoveries and a review of the Ordovician faunas of New Zealand. In J.C.
Gutiérrez-Marco, I. Ràbano & D. García-Bellido (eds), Ordovician of the World.
Spain. Cuadermos del Museo Geominero, 14. Instituto Geológico y Minero de
España, Madrid, 421-428.
Geological Survey of NSW
Ian Percival (GSNSW Londonderry office) continues research on two main fronts:
conodonts and brachiopods, with current focus on the Ordovician. He presented two
papers to the 11th International Symposium on the Ordovician System (held in Spain
in May, 2011) and was involved in a third – all were published in the Symposium
19
volume “Ordovician of the World” that is available for free download from the
website of the Spanish Geological Survey. Ian contributed to a paper in Geology that
pushed back by about 150 million years to the Late Ordovician, the earliest known
evidence for preservation of aragonite in brachiopod shells. A paper documenting the
diverse deepwater biota preserved in Ordovician cherts of the Lachlan Orogen in
central and southern New South Wales, has been published online with
Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology. Together with colleagues from
the NSW Geological Survey, Ian published a review of all Cambrian and Ordovician
stratigraphic units throughout the state, and contributed to a paper reassessing
Ordovician stratigraphy in the Wellington region of central NSW (in Proceedings of
the Linnean Society of NSW). Ian continued collaboration with Yong Yi Zhen
(Australian Museum) on Ordovician conodont biostratigraphy of China (for Records
of the Australian Museum), and with Yong Yi, Roger Cooper and John Simes,
documented Darriwilian brachiopods and conodonts from the Maruia area in the
South Island of New Zealand (for the recent AAP Memoir on Cambro-Ordovician
Studies IV). He also assisted with editing AAP Memoir 41, containing papers
presented at the International Brachiopod Congress held in Melbourne in 2010.
In the latter part of 2011 and extending into 2012, Ian will be expanding his
research directions into the Cambrian (describing Middle Cambrian brachiopods from
the Georgina Basin with Pierre Kruse, and commencing work on Late Cambrian
lingulates from China with Michael Engelbretsen) and Silurian (studying the
brachiopods of the Quidong area of southern NSW with Des Strusz, and working with
Michael Engelbretsen and colleagues on the Molong Limestone fauna).
Apart from research, Ian remains responsible for day-to-day palaeontological
advice and identification services to support the regional mapping program of the
Geological Survey of NSW. He continues as Secretary of the Subcommission on
Ordovician Stratigraphy (being responsible for the annual newsletter Ordovician
News), and also compiles Nomen Nudum for the AAP.
Publications
Balthasar, U., Cusack, M., Faryma, L., Chung, P., Holmer, L.E., Jin, J., Percival, I.G.
& Popov, L.E. 2011. Relic aragonite from Ordovician-Silurian brachiopods –
implications for the evolution of calcification. Geology 39, 967-970.
Ghobadi Pour, M., Popov, L.E., McCobb, L. & Percival, I.G. 2011. New data on the
Late Ordovician trilobite faunas of Kazakhstan: Implications for biogeography of
tropical peri-Gondwana; pp 171-177, in Gutiérrez-Marco, J.C., Rábano, I. &
García-Bellido, D. (eds.), Ordovician of the World. Cuadernos del Museo
Geominero, 14. Instituto Geológico y Minero de España, Madrid.
Percival, I.G. 2011. Biotic characteristics of Ordovician deep-water cherts from eastern
Australia. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology (online version
available).
Percival, I.G., Cooper, R.A. Zhen, Y.Y., Simes, J.E. & Wright, A.J. 2011. Recent
discoveries and a review of the Ordovician faunas of New Zealand; pp 421-428, in
Gutiérrez-Marco, J.C., Rábano, I. & García-Bellido, D. (eds.), Ordovician of the
World. Cuadernos del Museo Geominero, 14. Instituto Geológico y Minero de
España, Madrid.
Percival, I.G., Popov, L.E., Zhan, R.B. & Ghobadi Pour, M. 2011. Patterns of
origination and dispersal of Middle to Late Ordovician brachiopods: examples from
South China, East Gondwana, and Kazakh terranes; pp 413-419, in GutiérrezMarco, J.C., Rábano, I. & García-Bellido, D. (eds.), Ordovician of the World.
20
Cuadernos del Museo Geominero, 14. Instituto Geológico y Minero de España,
Madrid.
Percival, I.G. & Quinn, C.D. 2011. Reassessment of Lower Palaeozoic geology west of
the Catombal Range, Wellington region, central New South Wales. Proceedings of
the Linnean Society of New South Wales 132, 221-235.
Percival, I.G., Quinn, C.D. & Glen, R.A. 2011. A review of Cambrian and Ordovician
stratigraphy in New South Wales. Quarterly Notes, Geological Survey of New South
Wales 137, 1-39.
Percival, I.G., Simes, J.E., Cooper, R.A. & Zhen, Y.Y. 2011. Middle Ordovician
linguliformean brachiopods from the Maruia – Springs Junction area, New Zealand.
Memoirs of the Association of Australasian Palaeontologists 42, 459-492.
Shi, G.R., Weldon, E.A., Percival, I.G., Pierson, R.R. & Laurie, J.R. (editors) 2011.
Brachiopods – Extant and Extinct (Proceedings of the 6th International Brachiopod
Congress, 1‐5 February 2010, Melbourne, Australia). Memoirs of the Association of
Australasian Palaeontologists 41, 366 pp.
Zhan, R.B., Li, R.Y., Percival I.G. & Liang, Y. 2011. Brachiopod biogeographic change
during the Early to Middle Ordovician in South China. Memoirs of the Association
of Australasian Palaeontologists 41, 273-287.
Zhen, Y.Y., Cooper, R.A., Simes, J.E. & Percival, I.G. 2011. Middle Ordovician
(Darriwilian) conodonts from the Maruia – Springs Junction area, New Zealand.
Memoirs of the Association of Australasian Palaeontologists 42, 285-319.
Zhen, Y.Y., Wang, Z.H., Zhang, Y.D., Bergström, S.M., Percival, I.G. & Chen, J.F.
2011. Middle to Late Ordovician (Darriwilian-Sandbian) conodonts from the
Dawangou Section, Kalpin area of the Tarim Basin, northwestern China. Records of
the Australian Museum 63, 203-266.
John Pickett (Research Associate, Londonderry office) has just published an updated
index to all the coral literature for Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand and
Antarctica, as AAP Memoir 40. He hopes to advertise it to its prime audience at the
August 2011 meeting of specialists on fossil corals and sponges in Liege, Belgium.
He is attempting to finalise earlier work on Late Devonian corals from northwestern
China.
Lawrence Sherwin (GSNSW Orange office) is working on the gradual publication of
remaining parts of his PhD thesis which cover Siluro-Devonian faunas of central
NSW. His post retirement contract has been extended another year to provide some
palaeontological backup for regional mapping teams, in southern and western NSW,
as well as editorial mopping up of the Bathurst 1:250000 geol map and explanatory
notes. He is also conducting a ‘rescue’ mission for the heritage listed Allandale
Eurydesma locality which has been excavated as part of extensions to the Great
Northern Railway, funded by the relevant construction company (Hunter 8 Alliance).
The excavation of the Allandale cutting will add to the study of that locality by B.
Runnegar, published in Alcheringa. A paper summarising new findings at the site is
being prepared with co-author Simone Meakin.
Lawrence attended the Ordovician and Silurian conferences, held in Madrid
and Ludlow respectively, and hopes to assist Tony Wright in finalising the Silurian
graptolite project begun by the late Barrie Rickards.
Publications
Sherwin L. 2011. East Gondwana – an extended mobile zone. Siluria Revisited,
Ludlow, International Subcommission on Silurian Stratigraphy, Abstracts.
21
Macquarie University, North Ryde
Marissa Betts (Department of Biological Sciences) has commenced an honours
project examining the early Cambrian shelly taxa associated with archaeocyathan
bioherms in the Flinders Ranges, South Australia. Supervised by A/P Glenn Brock
and Dr James Valentine, the project will entail analysis of the ecology, diversity and
abundance of Small Shelly Fossils (SSF) and associated taxa (such as brachiopods
and molluscs) from shallow water facies, bioherms and deeper water, slope facies.
The project will also include an investigation into bioherms; their building and
binding guilds, architectural characteristics and the relationship they have with
assemblages of SSF and other shelly taxa.
Glenn Brock (Department of Biological Sciences) is the immediate past President
(2007-2010) of the Australasian Association of Palaeontologists (AAP) and former
Editor of Alcheringa. During the last 5 years Glenn’s research activities have
continued to focus on elucidating the evolution, phylogeny, biodiversity, ecology and
biostratigraphy of the earliest (stem group) bilaterian animals during the Cambrian
Explosion. These investigations, based on sampling of large quantities of superbly
preserved early Cambrian fossils from a variety of localities in East Gondwana
(Australia-Antarctica), have allowed Glenn to build a very strong, vibrant
international collaborative team which includes postgraduate, early career and
experienced researchers with expertise on specific techniques and faunal groups.
Glenn’s main focus is studying the evolutionary and ecological significance of
exceptionally preserved macro- and microfossils often grouped under the catch-all
title of "Small Shelly Fossils" (SSF). SSF is a descriptive term for a diverse collection
of small (1-2 mm) conical, cap and spine shaped skeletal fossils that characterise the
earliest part of the Cambrian Radiation bioevent. Recent research has shown (see
publications list) that many SSF are key to understanding the ecological and
phylogenetic relationships of the earliest bilaterian animals. Glenn is also currently
part of a research team excavating, investigating and conserving the globally
important lower Cambrian Emu Bay Shale on Kangaroo Island, South Australia, a
deposit containing fossils of exceptional preservation, evolutionary significance and
vital natural heritage.
Macquarie University remains one of the few Australian universities to offer
undergraduate BSc students a full coherent “Major” in Palaeontology/Palaeobiology
providing a “deep time” perspective to the evolution of life. Glenn convenes or coconvenes 4 x 3rd year units for the major and, from 2012, will convene the new
Graduate Certificate in Palaeobiology aimed at people who have little previous palaeo
background the chance to study palaeobiology. Glenn has supervised 5 PhD + 6
Honours to completion since 2006 and is current Supervisor of 2 PhD students and 1
Honours student.
Col Eglinton (Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences) continues towards
completion of his PhD on Paleogene ostracods from Victoria.
Michael Engelbretsen (Department of Biological Sciences) continues work on a
manuscript, almost completed and co-authored with Drs Ian Percival, Glenn Brock
and John Farrell, describing the lingulate brachiopods from the Macquarie Volcanic
22
Arc in central New South Wales. Another project with Ian Percival, elaborating on the
lingulide brachiopods from the Paibi section, the recently ratified GSSP for the
Paibian Stage and Furongian Series in the Huaqiao Formation in northwest Hunan
Province, South China, is underway. Collaborative work on primitive cnidarians will
also be undertaken with Dr Tae-yoon Park from the School of Earth and
Environmental Sciences, Seoul National University, Korea.
Terry Furey-Greig (Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences) continues his
interest in faunas from limestones (mostly allochthonous) and associated cherts from
the Tamworth region in association with Masaki Umeda, Ruth Mawson and John
Talent.
Margaret Harvey (Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences) continues her PhD
on latest Silurian-earliest Devonian silicified shallow-marine faunas (dominated by
brachiopods) at The Gap, southwest of Cumnock, NSW.
Matthew Kosnik (Department of Biological Sciences) is working in conservation
palaeobiology.
Briony Mamo (Department of Biological Sciences) is currently a Tutor and
Demonstrator at Macquarie University whilst seeking a post-doctoral placement.
Previous work has involved the application of foraminifera as palaeoenvironmental
indicators to reconstruct an environmental history of the New Caledonia Basin during
the Holocene.
Briony’s Doctoral research continued and expanded on this applied
foraminiferal theme. This research used analysis of foraminiferal assemblages and a
variety of methods to illustrate the utility of such analyses in an array of situations.
A dynamic approach was integrated into her research thesis so that baseline
taxonomic assessment of foraminiferal assemblages was developed, and then used to
assess their potential application as a diagnostic tool. This assessment included a
primary baseline investigation of the ecology, biotopes, depositional environments
and biodiversity of foraminiferal assemblages from key reefs in the Capricorn Group
within the southern Great Barrier Reef. The second part of the project investigated the
utility of foraminifera to “fingerprint” extreme storm/tsunami deposits. Both
suspected (ancient) and confirmed (modern) deposits were examined from locations
that included the south-eastern and north-eastern coasts of Australia (Bateman’s Bay,
New South Wales and Heron Island, Queensland, respectively).
The baseline study incorporated systematic taxonomy and quantitative cluster
analysis to identify and compare assemblage biotopes between One Tree Island,
Heron Island, Sykes and Wistari Reefs. The Foraminfera from the Great Barrier Reef
(especially the Capricorn and Bunker Groups) have received scant taxonomic
analyses and there has been no comprehensive review in the last 50 years. It was thus
imperative to establish standing crop diversity for modern foraminiferal assemblages
as a spring board for future applied and comparative foraminiferal analyses. These
analyses have great potential to reveal valuable information about the reef ecology,
biogeography and biodiversity of this world heritage region.
Given the widespread destruction associated with extreme storm (cyclones and
hurricanes) and tsunami events, including the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, the 2005
Hurricane Katrina, the South Pacific tsunami in 2009 and more recently, Cyclone
Yasi in February and the Tōhoku tsunami in March, 2011, there is increasing demand
23
for efficient and thorough tsunami and storm surge research, which can then be
applied to produce effective tsunami/storm warning systems. Given the relatively
transient nature of tsunami and storm deposits, researchers are increasingly turning to
an array of novel investigative procedures to glean as much information as possible
from these extreme events in order to develop warning systems that can provide the
longest period of evacuation time possible. As part of a collaborative team, Briony’s
research focused on reviewing the application of foraminiferal investigation to
modern and palaeotsunami sediments to assess the potential of using benthic
foraminifera as diagnostic features of ancient palaeotsunami/storm deposits.
David Mathieson (Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences) continues probing
various aspects of mid-Palaeozoic conodonts and macrofaunas from outcrops and
bores in the western half of NSW.
Julieta Martinelli (Department of Biological Sciences) has recently started working
on her PhD in latitudinal gradients in diversity and predation in molluscan
communities along the east coast of Australia. The main goals of the project are to (a)
understand taxonomic and functional diversity of recent marine molluscs from the
east Australian coast, and (b) assess predation frequencies in these communities. The
information obtained will identify latitudinal trends for this group, as well as
documenting the current community structure to compare with past (pre-colonial)
communities, and potentially help understand human-related changes and
implications for conservation.
Ruth Mawson (Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences) is completing a study
of conodonts (mainly latest Frasnian-Famennian) from the ‘Hongguleleng Formation’
of northwest Xinjiang (China) amassed during fieldwork in association with Chen
Xiuqin (Nanjing) and others. After that, Ruth and John Talent plan to present an
overview of conodont colour-alteration (CAI) data for most of the Silurian and
Devonian of eastern Australia and implications as regards thermal annealing. Putting
the final polish to a study (with David Mathieson, Andrew Simpson and John Talent)
on the Late Silurian (Ludfordian) to Early Devonian (early Emsian) conodonts of
western NSW, and to the Devonian conodont faunas of the Yarrol Terrane (E central
Queensland) will be resumed in 2012.
Andrew Simpson (Department of Environment and Geography) continues to
interleave palaeontological activity with Museum Studies responsibilities, but has
managed to complete contributions on Silurian faunas from western NSW (‘Myola’
near Trundle) and the Broken River area of northern Queensland.
Luke Strotz (Department of Biological Sciences) is currently working on using
modern and fossil Foraminifera data sets to interpret how macroevolutionary
dynamics influence contemporary biodiversity, in association with Dr Andrew Allen
(Macquarie University). Work has specifically focused on Foraminifera metabolism,
phylogeny and symbiotic relationships, and a number of publications stemming from
this work are soon to be submitted.
Luke is also continuing his work on interpreting marine inundation events
(such as cyclones and tsunami) in the recent and geological past, and determining how
microfossils can be utilised in refining our understanding of these events. Work has
concentrated on the Western Pacific, particularly Australia, New Zealand and the
24
Pacific Islands (Wallis and Futuna, Samoa). Manuscripts based on this work have
been published as part of a special issue of Earth-Science Reviews (Volume 107,
Issues 1-2).
Luke has also continued work on modern shallow-water foraminiferal
assemblages from Australia’s eastern coastline, from both temperate and tropical
settings. This work looks to document faunal assemblages and revise the taxonomy of
foraminifera from these settings.
John Talent (Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences) reports that by the time
this issue of Nomen Nudum appears (or very soon afterwards), the International Year
of Planet Earth volume Earth and Life: Global Biodiversity, Extinction Intervals and
Biogeographic Perturbations through Time, edited by him and being published by
Springer Science, will have appeared. After that, he and Ruth Mawson plan to present
an overview of conodont colour-alteration (CAI) data for most of the Silurian and
Devonian of eastern Australia and implications as regards thermal annealing. Other
tasks concern the diverse faunas of the ‘Hongguleleng Formation’ of NW Xinjiang,
China, sampled in 2005 and 2007 in association with friends from China, Austria,
Australia, the Czech Republic and the USA, and completing a monograph (with the
late Galina Stukalina) on dissociated, mainly silicified echinoderm remains from
eastern Australia.
James Valentine (Department of Biological Sciences) has recently started
investigating skeleton space utilisation and ecospace utilisation in the early Cambrian
in conjunction with Glenn Brock based on the highly diverse and abundant fossil
assemblages from the Flinders Ranges in South Australia. This project will also
investigate the relationship between skeletal body plans and ecospace filling through
time.
James has also recently completed currently working on a project with
Macquarie University Ancient History PhD student, Amber Hood, looking at the
application of cladistics to ancient Egyptian ceramics. Future studies in the same area
are planned to commence in late 2011 or early 2012.
Barry Webby (Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences) provided a full account
of his current research activities last year (see Nomen Nudum contribution for 2010
p.7-8) and most of them have been ongoing, into this year (2011). I have again been
actively involved as Coordinating Author of the Treatise volume (Part E, volume 4,
Revised) on the “Hypercalcified Porifera”. The “Glossary of Terms”, which I
compiled with the help of other Treatise authors has been published as Chapter 8 in
the Treatise Online 4:1-21 (2010 – for details see publication list). Another thirteen
chapters have been published in the Treatise Online across a variety of topics as
follows: Living Hypercalcified Sponges (Chapter 1) by Jean Vacelet & two coworkers, Introduction, Functional Morphology and Classification of the ChaetetidType Porifera (Chapters 2A-C) by Ron West, List of Upper Paleozoic-Mesozoic
Stromatoporoid-like Genera (Chapter 5) by Colin Stearn & Carl Stock; and
Systematic Description of the Family Disjectoporidae (Chapter 6), Introduction,
Internal Morphology, Microstructure, Morphologic Affinities, Functional
Morphology, Techniques for Study and Classification of the Paleozoic
Stromatoporoidea (Chapters 9A, 9C-F, 15A-B), and Systematic Descriptions of the
Paleozoic Stromatoporoidea – the orders Stromatoporellida, Stromatoporida,
Syringoporida and Amphiporida (Chapter16E) – all authored by Colin Stearn. Other
25
contributions are nearing publication in the Treatise Online (expected to be in print
before the end of this year). These are: Post Devonian Stromatoporoid-type Porifera
(Chapter 3) by Rachel Wood, Sphinctozoan- and Inozoan-type Hypercalcified
Sponges (Chapter 7) by B. Senowbari-Daryan and J Keith Rigby, External
Morphology of Paleozoic Stromatoporoidea (Chapter 9B) by Barry Webby & Stephen
Kershaw, and Paleoecology of Paleozoic Stromatoporoidea (Chapter 13) by Kershaw,
Systematic Descriptions of the Paleozoic Stromatoporoidea – the order
Clathrodictyida (Chapter 16C) by Heldur Nestor; and the General Features of the
Archaeocyatha (Chapters 18A-B) by Francoise Debrenne, Andrey Zhuravlev and
Peter Kruse.
Publication of a joint paper with Heldur Nestor on the Ordovician and Silurian
biogeography of stromatoporoids is imminent. We expect this chapter to be published
this year in the final IGCP 503 volume of the Memoir Series of the Geological
Society of London on Lower Palaeozoic palaeobiogegraphy. Work continues
describing the Silurian-Devonian stromatoporoid faunas of the Broken River region of
North Queensland in association with Zhen Yong Yi, and a study of a varied
Ordovician fauna of sphinctozoans, stromatoporoids and demosponges from
Kazakhstan with a number of the taxa exhibiting remarkably close biogeographic
links with Australian (NSW) faunal elements has been commenced, in cooperation
with Leonid Popov, Ian Percival and others.
George Wilson (Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences) is well on the way
towards completing editing of his PhD thesis on the silicified brachiopod faunas of
two sequences through part of the Garra Limestone, one east of Cumnock and one at
Wellington, the latter overlooked in earlier sampling by Brian Johnson and used for
the Palaeontographica monograph by Alf Lenz and Brian Johnson published in 1985.
If accepted for publication by Palaeontographica, this will bring to five the number of
monographs on the silicified Garra Limestone brachiopods, most (perhaps in excess
of 90% of it) derived from acid-leaching as a basis for third-year student-practical
work in Invertebrate Palaeontology as well as other courses run by John Talent and
Ruth Mawson over about 35 years.
Identifications and plates for documentation of a less-diverse silicified fauna
of mid-Pragian age (mentioned earlier), aligning biostratigraphically with
macrofaunas from the middle of the Garra Limestone, have been obtained from the
Booth Limestone in western New South Wales. It is hoped that this manuscript will
be submitted late 2011 to early 2012.
Recent publications by palaeontologists at Macquarie University
Balthasar, U., Holmer, L.E., Skovsted, C.B. & Brock, G.A. 2009. Homologous
skeletal secretion in tommotiids and brachiopods. Geology 37, 1143-1146.
Chen, X.-Q., Mawson, R., Talent, J. A., Mathieson, D. & Suttner, T. 2011.
Brachiopods, conodonts and the Frasnian‒Famennian boundary in northwestern
Xinjiang, China. In: ‘Biostratigraphy, Paleogeography and Events in the
Devonian and Lower Carboniferous’, meeting in memory of Evgeny A. Yolkin
(Ufa, Novosibirsk, Russia, July 20‒August 10, 2011).
Decombeix, A.-L., Meyer-Berthaud, B., Galtier, J., Talent, J.A. & Mawson, R. 2010.
Arborescent ligonophytes in the Tournaisian vegetation of Queensland
(Australia): paleoecological and paleogeographical significance.
Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 301, 39-55.
26
Finnegan, S., McClain, C.M., Kosnik, M.A. & Payne, J.L. 2011. Escargot through
time: an energetic comparison of marine gastropod assemblages before and after
the Mesozoic Marine Revolution. Paleobiology 37, 252-269.
Gordillo, S., Martinelli, J., Cárdenas, J. & Bayer, M.S. 2011. Testing ecological and
environmental changes during the last 6000 years: a multiproxy approach based
on the bivalve Tawera gayi from southern South America. Journal of the Marine
Association of the United Kingdom 91, 1413-1427.
Holmer, L.E., Skovsted, C.B., Larsson, C.L., Brock, G.A. & Zhang, Z-F. 2011. First
record of a bivalved larval shell in early Cambrian tommotiids and its
phylogenetic significance. Palaeontology 54, 235-239.
Holmer, L.E., Skovsted, C.B. & Brock, G.A. 2006. First record of canaliform shell
structure from the Lower Cambrian paterinate brachiopod Askepasma from South
Australia. Memoirs of the Association of Australasian Palaeontologists 32, 1-5.
Holmer, L.E., Skovsted, C.B., Brock, G.A. & Popov, L. 2011. An early Cambrian
chileate brachiopod from South Australia and its phylogenetic significance.
Memoirs of the Association of Australasian Palaeontologists 41, 289-294.
Jakobsen, K.G., Harper, D.A.T., Nielsen, A.T. & Brock, G.A. 2011. Darriwilian
biostratigraphy and palaeoecology during the Great Ordovician Biodiversification
Event – a northern Gondwanan perspective. J.C. Gutiérrez-Marco, I. Rábano and
D. García-Bellido (eds), Ordovician of the World. Cuadernos del Museo
Geominero 14, 253-258.
Jeppsson, L., Talent, J.A., Mawson, R., Andrew, A., Corradini, C., Simpson A.J.,
Wigforss-Lange, J. & Schönlaub, H. P. 2011. Late Ludfordian correlations and the
Lau Event. In Talent, J.A. (ed.), Earth and Life: Global Biodiversity, Extinction
Intervals and Biogeographic Perturbations through Time. Springer Science,
Dordrecht.
Kosnik, M.A., Behrensmeyer, A.K., Fürsich, F.T., Gastaldo, R.A., Kidwell, S.M.,
Kowalewski, M., Plotnick, R.E., Rogers, R.R., Wagner, P.J. & Alroy, J. 2011.
Changes in the shell durability of common marine taxa through the Phanerozoic:
evidence for biological rather than taphonomic drivers. Paleobiology 37, 303-331.
Percival, I.G., Brock, G.A., Valentine, J.L., Wright, A.J., & Strusz, D.L. (eds), 2010.
Ordovician-Silurian-Devonian brachiopods of New South Wales, 7-12 February
2010, post-congress excursion guidebook, 6th International Brachiopod Congress,
Melbourne. Association of Australasian Palaeontologists Field Guide Series 3, 194.
Skovsted, C.B., Brock, G.A., Topper, T.P., Paterson, J.R. & Holmer, L.E. 2011.
Scleritome construction, biofacies, biostratigraphy and systematics of the
tommotiid Eccentrotheca helenia sp. nov. from the early Cambrian of South
Australia. Palaeontology 54, 253-286.
Talent, J. A., 2011. Peter Molloy (1943–2011). Pander Society, Newsletter 43.
Talent, J. A. 2011. (ed.), Earth and Life: Global Biodiversity, Extinction Intervals and
Biogeographic Perturbations through Time. Springer Science, Dordrecht
Talent, J.A. 2011. Introduction. In Talent, J.A. (ed.), Earth and Life: Global
Biodiversity, Extinction Intervals and Biogeographic Perturbations through Time.
Springer Science, Dordrecht.
Talent, J.A., 2011. A perspective. In Talent, J.A. (ed.), Earth and Life: Global
Biodiversity, Extinction Intervals and Biogeographic Perturbations through Time.
Springer Science, Dordrecht.
Talent, J. A. et al. 2011. Rimma Trofimovna Gratsianova. Subcommission on
Devonian Stratigraphy Newsletter 26: 4-7.
27
Talent, J.A., Yolkin, E.A., Yolkina, V.N., Kipriyanova, T.P. & Gratsianova, R.T.
2011. Changes in the pattern of brachiopod biogeography in northern Asia
through Early and Middle Devonian times. In Talent, J.A. (ed.), Earth and Life:
Global Biodiversity, Extinction Intervals and Biogeographic Perturbations
through Time. Springer Science, Dordrecht.
Topper, T.P., Brock, G.A., Skovsted, C.B. & Paterson, J.R. 2010. Palaeoscolecid
scleritome fragments with Hadimopanella plates from the early Cambrian of
South Australia. Geological Magazine 147, 86-97.
Topper, T.P., Brock, G.A., Skovsted, C.B. & Paterson, J.R. 2011. Microdictyon plates
from the lower Cambrian Ajax Limestone of South Australia: Implications for
species taxonomy and diversity. Alcheringa 35, 427-443.
Topper, T.P., Skovsted, C.B., Brock, G.A., Paterson, J.R. 2011. The oldest bivalved
arthropods from the early Cambrian of East Gondwana: systematics and
biogeography. Gondwana Research 19, 310-326.
Webby, B.D. (compiler) 2010. Part E, Revised Volume 4. Chapter 8; Glossary of
terms applied to the hypercalcified Porifera. Treatise Online 4, 1-21.
University of New England, Armidale
John R. Paterson (School of Environmental and Rural Science) continues his
research on early Cambrian fossils of South Australia, particularly the Emu Bay Shale
Konservat-Lagerstätte on Kangaroo Island. Since the last issue of Nomen Nudum,
several papers have been published (or accepted) on this exceptional deposit,
including the geological context of the Emu Bay Shale and adjacent units (Gehling et
al. 2011), various new soft-bodied arthropods (Edgecombe et al. 2011; Paterson et al.
in press), plus the discovery of the oldest complex compound eyes in the fossil record
(Lee et al. 2011)! The latter paper received worldwide media attention (Google
‘Cambrian eyes’); a story in which I was interviewed (in addition to other experts at
Oxford and Yale) can be found on the website of the popular science magazine
Cosmos: http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/4460/scientists-see-rapid-evolutionancient-eyes. We have another exciting discovery that will be published soon, but
that’s for another Nomen Nudum. Excavations on Kangaroo Island will continue in
2012 thanks to National Geographic funding.
In October 2010, I recruited a new PhD student, Lee Ann Hally, who has hit the
ground running on her projects relating to the systematics, biogeography and
palaeoecology of middle Cambrian (Series 3) trilobites from East Gondwana. Lee
Ann has already finished her first paper on a taxonomic revision of the genus
Rhyssometopus that has been accepted for publication in the upcoming ‘CambroOrdovician Studies IV’ volume of the AAP Memoirs (no. 42).
Next year (June-December 2012) I will go on a sabbatical to take a “breather”
from teaching and administration to advance various research programs and present
talks at a couple of conferences (namely the 5th International Trilobite Conference in
Prague and the 34th International Geological Congress in Brisbane). In addition to
Emu Bay Shale research, I aim to write up a long term project with Nigel Hughes
(University of California, Riverside) and Brian Chatterton (University of Alberta) on
trilobite clusters and their implications for taphonomic processes and gregarious
behaviour.
Publications
28
Álvaro, J.J., Ahlberg, P., Babcock, L.E., Bordonaro, O.L., Choi, D.K., Cooper, R.A.,
Ergaliev, G.Kh., Gapp, I.W., Ghobadi Pour, M., Hughes, N.C., Jago, J.B.,
Korovnikov, I., Laurie, J.R., Lieberman, B.S., Paterson, J.R., Pegel, T.V., Popov,
L.E., Rushton, A.W.A., Sukhov, S.S., Tortello, M.F., Zhou, Z. & Żylińska, A., in
press. Global Cambrian trilobite palaeobiogeography assessed using parsimony
analysis of endemicity. Geological Society of America, Special Paper.
Edgecombe, G.D., García-Bellido, D.C. & Paterson, J.R., 2011. A new leanchoiliid
megacheiran arthropod from the lower Cambrian Emu Bay Shale, South
Australia. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, 56(2): 385-400.
Gehling, J.G., Jago, J.B., Paterson, J.R., García-Bellido, D.C. & Edgecombe, G.D.,
2011. The geological context of the Lower Cambrian (Series 2) Emu Bay Shale
Lagerstätte and adjacent stratigraphic units, Kangaroo Island, South Australia.
Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, 58(3): 243-257.
Lee, M.S.Y., Jago, J.B., García-Bellido, D.C., Edgecombe, G.D., Gehling, J.G. &
Paterson, J.R., 2011. Modern optics in exceptionally preserved eyes of Early
Cambrian arthropods from Australia. Nature, 474(7353): 631-634.
Lee, M. & Paterson, J., 2011 (in press). Rapid evolution? The eyes have it.
Australasian Science, December issue, 16-18.
Paterson, J.R., García-Bellido, D.C. & Edgecombe, G.D., in press. New artiopodan
arthropods from the early Cambrian Emu Bay Shale Konservat-Lagerstätte of
South Australia. Journal of Paleontology.
Skovsted, C.B., Brock, G.A., Topper, T.P., Paterson, J.R. & Holmer, L.E., 2011.
Scleritome construction, biofacies, biostratigraphy and systematics of the
tommotiid Eccentrotheca helenia sp. nov. from the early Cambrian of South
Australia. Palaeontology, 54(2): 253-286.
Topper, T.P., Brock, G.A., Skovsted, C.B. & Paterson, J.R., 2011. Microdictyon
plates from the lower Cambrian Ajax Limestone of South Australia: Implications
for species taxonomy and diversity. Alcheringa, 35(3): 427-443.
Topper, T.P., Skovsted, C.B., Brock, G.A. & Paterson, J.R., 2011. The oldest
bivalved arthropods from the early Cambrian of East Gondwana: systematics,
biostratigraphy and biogeography. Gondwana Research, 19(1): 310-326.
Wilson, G.D.F., Paterson, J.R. & Kear, B.P., 2011. Fossil isopods associated with a
fish skeleton from the Lower Cretaceous of Queensland, Australia – direct
evidence of a scavenging lifestyle in Mesozoic Cymothoida. Palaeontology,
54(5): 1053-1068.
University of New South Wales, Kensington
School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences
Tegan A. Vanderlaan is continuing her PhD at the University of New South Wales
with Malte C. Ebach (co-supervised by John R. Paterson at UNE). She is working on
the higher level systematic biology of Carboniferous trilobites (Order Proetida,
Family Phillipsiidae) and their evolutionary relationships in order to infer
palaeogeographic and tectonic reconstructions. The broader project investigates the
biotic evolution of Australasia and the geographical and geological processes
responsible for biotic diversification.
Helene Martin reports that a joint project with Dr. Luis Palazzesi (Museo Argentino
de Ciencias Naturales, Buenos Aires) on the phytogeography of the Southern
29
connection through the Cenozoic has been finished and submitted for publication. It
will go in a special edition on Southern Cone Floras in the Botanical Review. The
most amazing outcome of this review is the distribution of Lagarostrobos franklinii,
the Huon Pine, now endemic to south-west Tasmania. It evolved in the Late
Cretaceous, apparently on the Antarctic Peninsula, became widespread in the
Paleogene over Patagonia, Antarctica, New Zealand and Australia and was, at times,
abundant. In the Neogene, its distribution shrunk, along with increasing dryness, to its
present restricted distribution in Tasmania. The pollen is widespread and abundant,
but macrofossils of leaves have not been found anywhere except for some Pleistocene
ones in Tasmania. Today, Huon Pine is mainly found in the riverine environment and
leaves and twigs are frequently seen floating in rivers. This suggests that L. frankinii
is a Pleistocene species, the last of a very long lineage.
Work now concentrates on the Holocene palynology and vegetation history of
Jibbon Swamp in Royal National Park and the vegetation history: a joint project with
Dr. Jane Chalson.
Publication
Martin, H.A. & Palazzesi, L. (submitted). The Southern Connection — a lost world:
tracking the Cenozoic history of the Gondwanan Flora of Australia, New Zealand,
Antarctica and Patagonia. Botanical Review
W.B.Keith Holmes and Heidi Anderson Holmes
Keith and Heidi continue to work on the final paper describing the diverse
Middle Triassic Nymboida flora of northern NSW. This paper, number 9 of the series,
will describe the conifers, dispersed seeds, stems and roots included in the collections
made over almost fifty years. A group of dedicated amateur collectors have been
providing us with some unique material from the Queensland Esk and Ipswich
Formations. A joint paper describing Sphenobaiera leaves attached to stems is in
progress. Heidi, now an Honorary Researcher with the University of Witswatersrand,
Johannesburg, is completing the Sphenophyte Volume of the series describing the
vast Triassic Molteno Flora of South Africa.
Publications
Holmes, W.B.K. & Anderson, H.M. 2006 The Middle Triassic Megafossil Flora of
the Basin Creek Formation, Nymboida Coal Measures, New South Wales,
Australia. Part 6. Ginkgophyta. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of NSW 128,
155-200.
Holmes, W.B.K. & Anderson, H.M. 2008 The Middle Triassic Megafossil Flora of
the Basin Creek Formation, Nymboida Coal Measures, New South Wales,
Australia. Part 7. Cycadophyta. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of NSW 129,
113-149.
Holmes, W.B.K. & Anderson, H.M. 2010 The Middle Triassic Megafossil Flora of
the Basin Creek Formation, Nymboida Coal Measures, New South Wales,
Australia. Part 8. The Genera Nilssonia, Taeniopteris, Linguifolium, Gontriglossa
and Scoresbya. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of NSW, 131, 1 -26.
Anderson, H.M., Holmes, W.B.K. & Fitness, L.A. 2008. Stems with attached
Dicroidium leaves from the Ipswich Coal Measures, Queensland, Australia.
Memoirs of Queensland Museum 52(2): 1-12.
Anderson, J.M., Anderson, H.M. & Cleal, C.J. 2007. Brief history of the
gymnosperms: classification, biodiversity, phytogeography and ecology.
Strelitzia, 20, 1-280.
30
Anderson, H.M. & Anderson, J.M. 2008. Molteno Ferns: Late Triassic biodiversity in
southern Africa. Strelitzia, 21, 1-258.
*********************************************************************
QUEENSLAND
Queensland Museum, Brisbane
Carole J. Burrow continues her work on mid-Palaeozoic fish bits as an Honorary
Research Fellow with the QM. The Scottish Lower Old Red Sandstone acanthodian
collaboration with Mike Newman, Bob Davidson, and Jan den Blaauwen continues,
and we have submitted several manuscripts for publication. Other overseas projects
involve Silurian and Devonian acanthodians (and/or stem chondrichthyans) from
eastern Canada, ischnacanthiform acanthodian dentigerous jaw bones from North
America and Eurasia, and isolated acanthodian scale assemblages from, well, lots of
places. She has continued collaboration with Australian colleagues on the ARC
Discovery project ‘Origin of jaws - the greatest unsolved mystery of early vertebrate
evolution’ (2010-2013), with several manuscripts in progress on the acanthodian and
shark specimens from the Upper Devonian Gogo Formation of WA. Highlights of
field work this year were trips to the Devonian localities of the Carnarvon & Canning
Basins in WA, organized and led by Kate Trinajstic (Curtin University, WA).
Hopefully next year’s work will include a field trip to the important Lower
Carboniferous Ducabrook locality in central Queensland.
Publications
Blieck, A., Turner, S., Burrow, C.J., Schultze, H.-P., Rexroad, C.B., Bultynck, P. &
Nowlan, G.S. 2010. Fossils, histology, and phylogeny: Why conodonts are not
vertebrates. Episodes, 33(4), 234-241.
Burrow, C.J. 2011. A partial articulated acanthodian from the Silurian of New
Brunswick, Canada. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 48(9), 1329-1341.
doi:10.1139/e11-023
Burrow, C.J. & Turner, S. 2010. Reassessment of "Protodus" scoticus from the Early
Devonian of Scotland. In Elliott, D.K., et al. eds. Morphology, Phylogeny and
Paleobiogeography of Fossil Fishes - Honoring Meemann Chang. München:
Verlag Dr. Friedrich Pfeil, 123-144.
Burrow, C.J., Desbiens, S., Ekrt, B. & Sudkamp, W.H. 2010. A new look at
Machaeracanthus. In Elliott, D.K., et al. eds. Morphology, Phylogeny and
Paleobiogeography of Fossil Fishes - Honoring Meemann Chang. München:
Verlag Dr. Friedrich Pfeil, 59-84.
Burrow, C.J., Newman, M.J., Davidson, R.G. & den Blaauwen, J.L. 2011. Sclerotic
plates or circumorbital bones in early jawed fishes? Palaeontology 54(1), 207214. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4983.2010.01003.x
Newman, M.J., Davidson, R.G., Den Blaauwen, J.G. & Burrow, C.J. 2011: The Early
Devonian acanthodian Euthacanthus gracilis from the Midland Valley of
Scotland. Scottish Journal of Geology 47(2).
Turner, S., Burrow, C.J., Schultze, H.-P., Blieck, A., Reif, W.-E., Rexroad, C.B.,
Bultynck, P. & Nowlan, G.S. 2010. False teeth: conodont-vertebrate phylogenetic
relationships revisited. Geodiversitas 32(4), 545-594.
31
Turner, S. & Burrow, C.J. 2011. A Lower Carboniferous xenacanthiform shark from
Australia. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 31(2), 241-257. doi:
10.1080/02724634.2011.550359
Julien Louys is working on the Late Pleistocene/Holocene mammal record of Central
Western QLD, and is currently editing a book entitled “Palaeontology in Ecology and
Conservation”.
Publications
Louys, J., Meloro, C., Elton, S., Ditchfield, P. & Bishop, L.C. 2011. Mammal
community structure correlates with arboreal heterogeneity in faunally and
geographically diverse habitats: implications for community convergence. Global
Ecology and Biogeography 20, 717-729.
Louys, J., Meloro, C., Elton, S., Ditchfield, P. & Bishop, L.C., 2011. Mesowear as a
means of determining diets in African antelopes. Journal of Archaeological
Science 38, 1485-1495.
Louys, J. & Meijaard, E., 2010. Palaeoecology of Southeast Asian megafauna-bearing
sites from the Pleistocene and a review of environmental changes in the region.
Journal of Biogeography 37, 1432-1449.
Louys, J., Bishop, L.C. & Wilkinson, D.M. 2009. Opening dialogue between the
recent and the long ago. Nature 462, 847.
Louys, J., Aplin, K., Beck, R.M.D. & Archer, M. 2009. Cranial anatomy of OligoMiocene koalas (Diprotodontia: Phascolarctidae): stages in the evolution of an
extreme leaf-eating specialization. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 29, 981992.
Louys, J., Travouillon, K.J., Bassarova, M. & Tong, H. 2009. The use of natural
protected areas in palaeoecological analyses: assumptions, limitations and
application. Journal of Archaeological Science 36, 2274-2288.
Louys, J. 2008. Quaternary extinctions in Southeast Asia. In Elewa AMT (ed) Mass
Extinction. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, Germany, pp. 159-189.
Louys, J. 2007. Limited effect of the Quaternary’s largest super-eruption (Toba) on
land mammals from Southeast Asia. Quaternary Science Reviews 26, 3108-3117.
Louys, J., Curnoe, D. & Tong, H. 2007. Characteristics of Pleistocene megafauna
extinctions in Southeast Asia. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology,
Palaeoecology 243, 152-173.
West, J.A. & Louys, J. 2007. Differentiating bamboo from stone tool cut marks in the
zooarchaeological record, with a discussion on the use of bamboo knives. Journal
of Archaeological Science 34, 512-518.
Louys, J., Black, K., Archer, M., Hand, S. & Godthelp, H. 2007. Descriptions of koala
material from the Miocene of Riversleigh, northwestern Queensland and its
implications for Litokoala (Marsupialia, Phascolarctidae). Alcheringa 31, 99-110.
Archer, M., Arena, D.A., Bassarova, M., Beck, R., Black, K., Boles, W.E., Brewer,
P., Cooke, B.N., Crosby, K., Gillespie, A., Godthelp, H., Hand, S.J., Kear, B.,
Louys, J, Morrell, A., Muirhead, J., Roberts, K.K., Scanlon, J.D., Travouillon,
K.T. & Wroe, S. 2006. Current status of species-level representation in faunas
from selected fossil localities in the Riversleigh World Heritage Area,
northwestern Queensland. Alcheringa Special Issue 1, 1-17.
Andrew Rozefelds recently commenced work as Head of Geosciences at the
Queensland Museum. He is currently settling into the new role and is keen to
recommence work on Tertiary and Mesozoic Floras. While at the Tasmanian Museum
32
he completed, with Anne Warren from La Trobe University and Stuart Bull from the
Department of Geology, University of Tasmania, descriptions of the first dicynodont
from Tasmania. Temnospondyls from the same locality were referred to Bothriceps
australis. Other papers are in prep on a review of the Triassic faunas of Tasmania.
Publications:
Duretto M., van Breda C., Rozefelds A.C. Young C., 2011. Kanunnah Vol 4.
(Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart)
Rozefelds, A.C., Warren, A. 2011. Lepidostrobus muelleri Johnston is a skull
fragment of a temnospondyl amphibian. Alcheringa 35(3), 459-462.
Rozefelds, A.C., Warren, A, Whitfield, A., Bull, S. 2011. New evidence of Triassic
dicynodonts from Australia. Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology. 31(5), 11581162.
Squires D., Rozefelds 2011. Michael J Clarke collections, from the geological survey
of Tasmania, are transferred to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery.
Alcheringa 35(3), 467-468.
Warren, A., Rozefelds, A.C., Bull S. 2011. Tupilakosaur-like Vertebrae in Bothriceps
Australia, an Australian bracyopid stereospondyl. Journal of Vertebrate
Palaeontology 31(4), 738-753.
Susan Turner (Geoscience Consultant) is an Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the
School of Geosciences at Monash University, an Honorary Research Fellow of
Queensland Museum Geosciences, and Honorary Research Associate of the New
Brunswick Museum, Canada. In the last few years she has worked as a scientific
editor for the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences Acta Geologica Sinica and
since mid-2010 for University of Beijing’s Geoscience Frontiers.
Sue is working on Palaeozoic and Mesozoic fish, especially cartilaginous
ones, as well as a few ‘higher’ vertebrates in Australia and internationally. Since 2009
she has concentrated mainly on fossil sharks especially Silurian and Devonian early
sharks, Carboniferous (with Carole Burrow) and Triassic xenacanth sharks in
Australia, the first Jurassic shark in Australia (collected by Steve Avery), fish kills
and mass death of fishes, including the possible lahar site at Atholville, New
Brunswick. In 2011 she has researched collections in London (NHM), Philadelphia
(Academy of Natural Sciences) and Harrisburg PA State Museum). In June she
attended and presented at the 12th Early/Lower Vertebrates meeting at Dallas, Texas
and the field trip to Permian vertebrates sites. In mid-2011 she was awarded a grant to
work again at the Natural History Museum in London for 2 months. This has brought
her back to work on Ordovician–Devonian thelodonts and other fish microfossils
especially from UK but also Australia, Canada, Iran, USA and new material from
North Africa and Turkey. Sue also researches history of geological collectors and
collections; in 2010 she published a history of women in the ‘saurian’ world and she
continues to consider women in palaeontology. With Carole Burrow and other
colleagues, she finished a major review of work on conodonts to support the
hypothesis that they are NOT vertebrates (see publications), which is receiving much
interest on www.Academia.edu.
Publications (pre-2011, see www.paleodeadfish.com):
Turner, S., Burrow, C.J. Schultze, H.-P. Blieck, A. R.M., Reif, W.-E., Bultynck, P.B.,
Rexroad, C. & Nowlan, G.S. 2010. Conodont-vertebrate phylogenetic
relationships revisited. Geodiversitas, 32 (4), 545-594.
http://www.mnhn.fr/museum/front/medias/publication/31374_g2010n4a1.pdf
33
Blieck A, Turner S, Burrow C J, Schultze H-P, Rexroad C B, Bultynck, P.B., &
Nowlan, G.S. 2010. Fossils, histology, and phylogeny: why conodonts are not
vertebrates. Episodes, Vol. 33, N° 4, December 2010, p. 234-241.
Turner, S. & Burrow, C.J. 2011. A Lower Carboniferous xenacanthiform shark from
Queensland, Australia. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 31, 241-257.
//dx.doi.org/10.1080/02724634.2011.550359
Turner, S. 2011. Beautiful One day; Perfect the Next! 19th–early 20th century
geological collectors and collecting in the Great State of Queensland. HOGG
Geological Collectors & Collecting, Poster Abstracts, April 4-5, Natural History
Museum, London, p. 17.
Turner, S. & Burrow, C.J. 2011. Mississippian fish assemblage from the Ducabrook
Formation, central Queensland: palaeoenvironment and taphonomy. CAVEPS
2011, Perth WA. April, Abstract for poster.
Turner, S. 2011. Tracking Trackmakers: A Brief History of Dinosaur Ichnology in
Australia. In: HOGG, Dinosaurs, Their Kith And Kin: a historical perspective.
May 3-6, 2011, SGF & MNHN, Paris, Poster Abstracts, p. 30.
Turner, S. 2011. Dinosaurs and Lost Dreams: the von Huene–Longman story. In:
HOGG Dinosaurs, their Kith and Kin: a historical perspective. May 3-6, 2011,
SGF & MNHN, Paris, Abstracts, p. 32.
Turner, S. 2011. Australia's first fossil fish is still missing! Geological Curator, 9, no.
5, 285-290. online
Maisey, J., Miller, R.F. & Turner, S. 2011. Earliest intact chondrichthyan dentition
revealed by CT scanning. In: Johnson, G. ed. 12th International Symposium on
Early/Lower Vertebrates. Institute for the Study of Earth and Man, Southern
Methodist University, Dallas, Texas June 11-14, 2011. Ichthyolith Issues Special
Publication 12, xx-x.
Turner, S. 2011. The survivors: Triassic xenacanthiform sharks in Australia. In:
Johnson, G. ed. 12th International Symposium on Early/Lower Vertebrates.
Institute for the Study of Earth and Man, Southern Methodist University, Dallas,
Texas June 11-14, 2011. Ichthyolith Issues Special Publication 12, 49-50.
Schultze, H.-P., Blieck, A. Burrow, C.J. & Turner, S. 2011 Histology and the
phylogenetic and systematic position of Conodonts. In: ISPH 2011, July 18-20,
Sabadell 1p.
Turner, S. 2011. Review of Fossils Alive! or New Walks in an Old Field, by Trewin,
N.H. (2008). The Palaeontological Association Newsletter no. 77, p. 81.
University of Queensland, St Lucia
Geoffrey Playford (School of Earth Sciences) is working on several Palaeozoic
research topics. These include Upper Devonian-Mississippian palynostratigraphy of
the northern Brazilian basins of Amazonas, Parnaíba, and Solimões, while based 6-7
months per year at the Petrobras Research Centre in Rio de Janeiro, in association
with José Henrique Gonçalves de Melo (Petrobras/Cenpes) and Leonardo Borghi
(Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro); and mid-Upper Devonian palynology of the
Canning Basin, Western Australia. In the first semester of 2012, he is looking forward
to resuming collaboration with Reed Wicander (Central Michigan University) during
the latter’s third sabbatical visit to the University of Queensland.
34
Mississippian (Tournaisian) palynomorphs from the Longá Formation, Parnaíba Basin,
northern Brazil. A, Verrucosisporites nitidus; B, Knoxisporites hederatus; C, Maranhites
brasiliensis (recycled from Devonian). Scale bars = 20 µm.
Publications, 2010
Playford, G. & Melo, J.H.G. 2010. Morphological variation and distribution of the
Tournaisian (Lower Mississippian) miospore Waltzispora lanzonii Daemon, 1974.
Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie Abhandlungen 256, 183-193.
González, F., Moreno, C. & Playford, G. 2010. Palaeopalynological plagiarism: a
case involving the Devonian–Carboniferous of the Iberian Pyrite Belt, South
Portuguese Zone. Palaeontographica, Abteilung B 283 (1-3), 1-4.
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SOUTH AUSTRALIA
School of Biological Sciences
Flinders University of South Australia
Upcoming Events
Flinders University will host the next Conference on Australasian Vertebrate
Evolution, Palaeontology and Systematics (CAVEPS) in July 2013.
Gavin Prideaux has been working on a new ARC-funded project in 2011 (with
collaborators Peter Ungar, Linda Ayliffe, Matt Skinner, Alistair Evans and Natalie
Warburton). This is examining the evolution and ecology of marsupial herbivores
over the past 25 million years, concentrating particularly on tracking changes in taxon
diversity, diet, body size and locomotory capabilities. Several methods are being used
including microwear, microCT, microstructural and 3D topographic analysis of teeth
as well as functional morphological analyses. To date the main focus for Gavin and
Research Assistant Grant Gully has been on collecting dental impressions for
microwear analysis, to be undertaken in Peter Ungar’s lab at the University of
Arkansas in October 2011. In addition, the National Geographic-funded expedition to
the Nullarbor Thylacoleo Caves in August 2011 was a great success, and resulted in a
much larger vertebrate fossil sample from the Early Pleistocene levels in Leaena’s
Breath Cave. The rich and diverse assemblage of mammals, birds, reptiles and frogs
has yet to be fully analysed, but is emerging as an arid-zone equivalent of the
Naracoorte Caves of south eastern South Australia.
Publications
35
Macken, A. C., Jankowski, N. R., Price, G. J., Bestland, E. A., Reed, E. H., Prideaux,
G. J. & Roberts, R. G. 2011. Application of sedimentary and chronological
analyses to refine the depositional context of a Late Pleistocene vertebrate deposit,
Naracoorte, South Australia. Quaternary Science Reviews 30, 2690–2702.
Warburton, N. M., Harvey, K. J., Prideaux, G. J. & O’Shea, J. E. 2011. Functional
morphology of the forelimb of living and extinct tree-kangaroos (Diprotodontia:
Macropodinae). Journal of Morphology online 31 May 2011
Laurance, W. F., Dell, B., Turton, S. M., Lawes, M. J., Hutley, L. B., McCallum, H.,
Dale, P., Bird, M. I., Hardy, G., Prideaux, G. J., Gawne, B., McMahon, C. R., Yu,
R., Hero, J.-M., Schwarzkopf, L., Krockenberger, A., Douglas, M., Silvester, E.,
Mahony, M., Vella, K., Saikia, U., Wahren, C.-H., Xu, Z., Smith, B. & Cocklin,
C. 2011. The ten Australian ecosystems most vulnerable to tipping points.
Biological Conservation 144, 1472–1480.
Prideaux, G. J., Gully, G. A., Couzens, A. M., Ayliffe, L. K., Jankowski, N. R.,
Jacobs, Z., Roberts, R. G., Hellstrom, J. C., Gagan, M. K. & Hatcher, L. M. 2010.
Timing and dynamics of Late-Pleistocene mammal extinctions in southwestern
Australia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 107, 22157–
22162.
Megirian, D., Prideaux, G. J., Murray, P. F. & Smit, N. 2010. An Australian land
mammal age biochronological scheme. Paleobiology 36, 658–671.
Prideaux, G. J. & Warburton, N. M. 2010. An osteology-based appraisal of the
phylogeny and evolution of kangaroos and wallabies (Macropodidae,
Marsupialia). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 159, 954–987.
Rod Wells continues in ‘retirement’ his studies of the Australian megafauna. His
current research focusses on (1) the Plio-Pleistocene faunas of the Lake Eyre Basin,
particularly sites along Cooper’s Creek and the Warburton River. This is a continuing
study, carried out over many years in collaboration with the late Dr Richard Tedford
of the American Museum of Natural History. (2) The Pleistocene faunas of the
alluvial fans flanking the Mount Lofty and Flinders Ranges. This research is in
collaboration with Dr Aaron Camens, and (3) the anatomical reconstruction of
individual megafauna species. Rod is also currently working on a monograph on
Thylacoleo in collaboration with Dr Peter Murray of the Northern Territory Museum,
Australia.
Publications
Forbes, M.S., Kohn, M.J., Bestland, E.A. & Wells, R.T. 2010. Late Pleistocene
environmental change interpreted from δ13C and δ18O of tooth enamel from the
Black Creek Swamp Megafauna site, Kangaroo Island, South Australia.
Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 291, 319–327
Camens, A. B. & Wells, R.T. 2010. Palaeobiology of Euowenia grata (Marsupialia:
Diprotodontinae) and its presence in northern South Australia. Journal of
Mammalian Evolution 17, 3–19.
Grant Gully is a Research Assistant in the Flinders University Palaeontology
Laboratory. His current primary responsibilities revolve around data collection and
collation of marsupial adaptations to increasing aridity and applying this to the
reconstruction and interpretation of Australian palaeoenvironments. When he’s not
doing this he curates the labs fossil collection and has a burgeoning interest in
evolutionary and ecological Complex Adaptive Systems.
Publications
36
Prideaux, G. J., Gully, G. A., Couzens, A. M., Ayliffe, L. K., Jankowski, N. R.,
Jacobs, Z., Roberts, R. G., Hellstrom, J. C., Gagan, M. K. & Hatcher, L. M. 2010.
Timing and dynamics of Late-Pleistocene mammal extinctions in southwestern
Australia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 107, 22157–
22162.
Aaron Camens finished his PhD, involving the phylogenetic and biomechanical
analysis of the Diprotodontidae, at the University of Adelaide in June 2010. His
current research interests focus on the systematics, behaviour, palaeobiology and
palaeoecology of the extinct Australian megafauna.
Since 2006, Aaron has taken part in palaeontological excavations in South
Australia, Victoria, Tasmania and the Northern Territory of deposits spanning the last
25 million years. He has also been involved in field work further abroad including
Miocene sites in New Zealand and Holocene sites in Madagascar. He has participated
in a range of projects including the description of (i) the palaeobiology and functional
morphology of several extinct marsupial taxa, (ii) the oldest known fossil mammal
trackways in Australia, (iii) some of the youngest extinct megafaunal fossils
discovered from Tasmania and (iv) the most speciose and best preserved Australian
megafaunal fossil trackways from the Victorian Volcanic Plains.
Aaron is currently investigating late Pleistocene vertebrate trackways in the
Bridgewater Formation and Tamala Supergroup spanning much of the Western
Australian, South Australian and Victorian coastline. He is also pursuing
investigations involving the late-surviving megafauna of Tasmania and the possibility
of retrieving protein sequences from Australian megafaunal fossils.
Publications
Carey, S. P., Camens, A.B., Cupper, M.L., Grün, R., Hellstrom, J.C., McKnight,
S.W., McLennan, I., Pickering, D.A., Trusler, P. & Aubert, M. 2011. A diverse
Pleistocene marsupial trackway assemblage from the Victorian Volcanic Plains,
Australia. Quaternary Science Reviews 30, 591–610.
Camens, A. B. 2010. Were early Tertiary monotremes really all aquatic? Inferring
paleobiology and phylogeny from a depauperate fossil record. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences USA 107, E12.
Camens, A. B. & Wells, R.T. 2010. Palaeobiology of Euowenia grata (Marsupialia:
Diprotodontinae) and its presence in northern South Australia. Journal of
Mammalian Evolution 17, 3–19.
Thesis
Camens, A. B. 2010. Systematic and palaeobiological implications of postcranial
morphology in the Diprotodontidae (Marsupialia). PhD Thesis, University of
Adelaide.
Popular science
Camens, A. B. 2010. The OTHER fossil record: Tracking Australian mammals
through the ages. In "Fossil Hunters 2: Stories from the Palaeontologists." (M.
Madigan, Mikkelsen, S., Ed.), pp. 47–55. South Australian Museum, Adelaide.
Camens, A.B. 2010. Tracking megabeasts in southern Australia, in: The Australian
Geologist (TAG), pp. 34–36.
Matt McDowell is completing a PhD under the supervision of Drs Gavin Prideaux
and Liz Reed. He is examining how the vertebrate fauna of Kangaroo Island
responded to climate change and isolation during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene.
His primary excavation site is in K1 Cave (Kelly Hill Caves complex), but he has also
37
reviewed the Seton Rockshelter assemblage and presented his findings at CAVEPS
2011. Matt also maintains an interest in late Holocene/pre-European fossil
accumulations. He is investigating two assemblages from southern Yorke Peninsula to
determine their age, faunal composition and implications for Natural Resource
Management. In addition, Matt has been accepted to give a presentation at the
Ecological Society of Australia 2011 Annual Conference in the symposium titled
“The importance of the past: the palaeoecological context of modern landscapes.”
Publications
Start, T. Burbidge, A. A., McDowell, M. C. & McKenzie, N. L. In press. The status of
non-volant mammals along a rainfall gradient in the south-west Kimberley,
Western Australia. Australian Mammalogy.
Baynes, A. & McDowell, M. C. 2010. The original mammal fauna of the Pilbara
biogeographic region of north-western Australia. Records of the Western
Australian Museum Supplement 78, 285–298.
Rachel Correll is completing a PhD under the supervision of Drs Gavin Prideaux,
Mike Gardner and Duncan Mackay. Her project is investigating determinants of
geographic body size variation within nine Australian mammal species by correlating
skull and dental measurements (proxy indicators for body size) with climatic
variables. She has collected measurements from 6300 specimens housed in Australian
museums and obtained data on temperature, rainfall, evapotranspiration and
vegetation index from the Bureau of Meteorology. With data collection now
complete, multiple linear regression models are currently being developed to explain
variation in body size. Rachel’s aim is to identify which climatic and/or
environmental factor(s) are most responsible for determining intraspecific body size
patterns in Australian mammal species, a fundamental, yet poorly understood aspect
of their biology.
Publications
Price, M.V. & Correll, R.A. 2001. Depletion of seed patches by Merriam's kangaroo
rats: Are GUD assumptions met? Ecology Letters 4, 334–343.
Amy Macken is continuing her PhD research under the supervision of Drs Liz Reed
and Gavin Prideaux. She is studying the small mammal faunas of the Late
Pleistocene-Holocene from the Naracoorte Caves in south eastern South Australia.
Her research aims to provide a long term baseline of small mammal diversity,
population and community variability and environmental thresholds to assist the
management and conservation of vulnerable species into the future. In 2010, Amy
presented her Honours research into mammal responses to climate change associated
with the last interglacial from the Naracoorte Caves at the Ecological Society of
Australia’s (ESA) annual conference. She also presented preliminary results from her
PhD research at the 2010 conference and will present further results at the upcoming
ESA 2011 conference in a symposium titled: “The importance of the past: ecological
perspectives of modern landscapes.”
Publications
Macken, A. C., Jankowski, N. R., Price, G. J., Bestland, E. A., Reed, E. H., Prideaux,
G. J. & Roberts, R. G. 2011. Application of sedimentary and chronological
analyses to refine the depositional context of a Late Pleistocene vertebrate deposit,
Naracoorte, South Australia. Quaternary Science Reviews 30, 2690–2702.
38
Aidan Couzens moved to Adelaide from Perth in March 2011 to start a PhD under
the supervision of Dr Gavin Prideaux. In addition to starting his PhD, he has also been
finalising a paper from his Honours which examines the use of cave charcoal records
to infer Pleistocene fire history. He presented an outline of this work at the CAVEPS
conference in Perth in April 2011.
Aidan’s PhD thesis will investigate dental adaptations to Late Cenozoic
dietary change amongst Diprotodontoid and macropodid herbivores. To accomplish
this he is utilising conventional absorption and synchrotron microcomputed
tomography to evaluate dental evolution at whole crown and microstructural levels.
Although adaptation is a central theme, Aidan is particularly interested in how
evolutionary constraints channel patterns of morphological evolution. Aidan is also
President of the Flinders University Palaeontology Society.
Publications
Prideaux, G. J., Gully, G. A., Couzens, A. M., Ayliffe, L. K., Jankowski, N. R.,
Jacobs, Z., Roberts, R. G., Hellstrom, J. C., Gagan, M. K. & Hatcher, L. M. 2010.
Timing and dynamics of Late-Pleistocene mammal extinctions in southwestern
Australia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 107, 22157–
22162.
Sam Arman completed an Honours degree in 2011 under the supervision of Drs
Gavin Prideaux and Liz Reed, investigating Pleistocene vertebrate scratch marks in
Tight Entrance Cave, Western Australia. A number of actualistic trials were
undertaken to assist in determining the species and likely behaviours responsible for
the scratches. To assist in interpretation of the past cave environment, a cave survey
and taphonomic analysis of modified bones deposited in the chamber were also
undertaken. The results found are currently in preparation for publication and were
presented at CAVEPS 2011. Sam is now in the initial stages of a PhD under Gavin
Prideaux and Peter Ungar looking at microwear of large herbivores from southern
Australia. As well as inferring the diets of extant and extinct herbivores during this
period, he hopes to reconstruct past environments, plant-herbivore interactions and
niche partitioning among herbivores. Alongside his formal research Sam is looking at
the utilisation of GIS, surveying and geophysical techniques to assist in interpreting
fossil localities. Sam is also secretary of the Flinders University Palaeontology
Society. The Society is currently working with Aaron Camens and Rod Wells to
investigate mid-Pleistocene vertebrate deposits of the mid north of South Australia.
Publications (Thesis)
Arman, S. 2011. Documentation and Interpretation of vertebrate scratch marks in
Tight Entrance Cave, Western Australia. BSc. Hons. Thesis, Flinders University.
Qamariya Nasrullah is currently undertaking an Honours project of a phylogenetic
study on an extinct group of kangaroos (sthenurines) under the supervision of Drs
Gavin Prideaux and Michael Schwarz. Her project focuses on post cranial
morphology which has underrated diagnostic potential, useful for resolving
phylogenies of fossil taxa. She attended the 2011 CAVEPS conference in Perth earlier
this year, and excavated for Diprotodon fossils recently in Burra. She plans to publish
her Honours project results at the end of the year, develop a key for identifying
macropodid post cranial material to improve accessibility of fossil collections and
begin a PhD in mid-2012 related to marsupial phylogenetics and taxonomy.
39
James Moore is in the final year of his Bachelor’s degree and anticipates launching
straight into Honours in 2012. James hopes to investigate the taphonomic signatures
of Australian mammalian carnivores preserved in cave assemblages, with Drs Liz
Reed and Gavin Prideaux. In 2010, James worked with Dr Liz Reed and Steve Bourne
on a project to document and analyse the taphonomy of a Pleistocene predator fossil
assemblage from Naracoorte. He presented this work at CAVEPS in April 2011 as an
oral paper.
Carey Burke is working on the construction of Thylacoleo skeletons for Museum
Victoria and the visitor centre of a Western Australian cave system. He is also
producing casts of various iconic specimens from the Flinders University Laboratory
Collection for research and sale through the South Australian Museum. In 2010,
Carey began construction of the Bone Box, an information and resource package for
schools. Carey was also involved in the August 2011 Nullarbor expedition led by Dr
Gavin Prideaux.
South Australian Museum, Adelaide
The Palaeontology section has been fully occupied over the past year. Besides
participation in the Museum’s Palaeontology Week activities, staff have continued
their researches on the Ediacaran Assemblage in the Flinders Ranges, the early
Cambrian Emu Bay lagerstatten of Kangaroo Island, and various vertebrate problems.
Richard Jenkins continues to promote the ‘protochordate’, numerous specimens of
which have been found over the past few years, against the disbelief of some
entrenched reviewers. Mike Lee, Jim Jago, Jim Gehling and others published on some
exquisitely preserved arthropod compound eyes from Emu Bay in Nature, vol. 474,
631-634. Other papers on the Emu Bay Shale lagerstatte were published in the
Australian Journal of Earth Sciences, vol. 58. Mike Lee and Trevor Worthy (UNSW)
effectively refuted the proposed down-grading of Archaeopteryx as the oldest bird, in
a review of the evidence in Biology Letters October 26, 2011.
Neville Pledge reports that the past year has seen slow progress on a number of
projects. The preparation and cleaning of a skeleton of squalodont whale, collected
over a period until 2002, has continued spasmodically due to ad hoc working
conditions (mostly done at home), the fragile nature of the bones, and access to
required chemicals. Most of the skull has now been isolated, and is being processed,
after being on temporary display for Palaeontology Week at the South Australian
Museum earlier this year. Negotiations are ongoing for a collaboration with Erich
Fitzgerald (Museum Victoria) to expedite this preparatory work, and produce a
comprehensive description of the fossil, which seems to be one of the best of its type
so far found in Australia.
Description of an opalised astragalus (ankle bone) referrable to the unique
opalised tibia (shin bone) of South Australia’s only described dinosaur, Kakuru kujani
Molnar & Pledge, is undergoing revision with Dr Ralph Molnar, formerly Queensland
Museum.
New material of Ektopodon stirtoni has been described and is awaiting new
figures for publication.
Publications:
40
Lee, M.S.Y., Jago, J.B., Garcia-Bellido, D.C., Edgecombe, G.D., Gehling, J.G. &
Patterson, J.R. 2011. Modern optics in exceptionally preserved eyes of Early
Cambrian arthropods from Australia. Nature 474: 631—634.
Lee, M.S.Y. & Worthy, T.H. 2011. Likelihood reinstates Archaeopteryx as a primitive
bird. Biology Letters, published online.
Pledge, N.S. 2010. The Telford “Cetothere” (Cetacea: Mysticeti: Cetotheridae).
Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 134 (2): 158–163.
Pledge, N.S. 2010. A new koala (Marsupialia: Phascolarctidae) from the late
Oligocene Etadunna Formation, Lake Eyre Basin, South Australia. Australian
Mammalogy 32: 79–86.
Pierre Kruse continues his sizable project on Flinders Ranges archaeocyaths, in
collaboration with Françoise Debrenne (ex Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle,
Paris, France), based on measured sections at Ajax Mine and Wirrealpa Mine.
He is also involved in a three-year (2010-2012) Spanish National Research
Council (CSIC) project entitled ‘Palaeobiogeographical study of the Perigondwanan
margin during the Ediacaran and Cambrian: sedimentological, biostratigraphical,
biogeographical and geochemical analyses in areas of the Iberian Peninsula and SE
Australia’. Within this project he is collaborating with Elena Moreno-Eiris and
Antonio Perejon (both Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain) variously on
archaeocyaths from the White Point Conglomerate of Kangaroo Island, SA, and on
cryptic archaeocyaths of the basal Pedroche Formation within undersea andesite caves
at Las Ermitas, Spain.
To further these projects, Pierre spent June-August 2011 in Paris and Madrid,
and also took the opportunity to revive his collaborative work with Joachim Reitner
(Georg August University) on middle Cambrian sponge reefs of the Daly and
Georgina Basins during a visit to Göttingen, Germany. He presented a joint talk on
the White Point Conglomerate archaeocyaths at the 11th Symposium on Fossil
Cnidaria and Porifera in Liège, Belgium.
Joint contributions on Archaeocyatha, Radiocyatha and Cribricyatha (with
Françoise Debrenne and Andrey Zhuravlev) to a forthcoming Porifera volume of the
Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology continue to creep through proof stages.
University of Adelaide
Brian McGowran (Earth & Environmental Sciences) reports some busy writing and
some editorial delays, but no actual publications since the previous communication.
University of South Australia
Jim Jago is continuing to work on the Cambrian trilobites of Tasmania, South
Australia and Antarctica. Current projects include a late middle Cambrian fauna from
Christmas Hills, Tasmania with Chris Bentley and a late Cambrian fauna from the
south coast of Tasmania with John Laurie. A recently completed paper (with Chris
Bentley and Roger Cooper) on a late middle Cambrian fauna containing Centropleura
from northern Victoria Land, Antarctica will appear in AAP Memoir CambroOrdovician Studies 4”. In the last four years a lot of time has gone into the Big Gully
biota, a Burgess Shale type fauna from Kangaroo Island. Workers on this project
41
include Mike Lee, Jim Gehling, John Paterson, Greg Edgecombe, Diego GarciaBellido, Glenn Brock and Jim Jago. This project has been supported by an ARC
Collaborative Grant with Beach Energy as the industry partner. Other projects
include sedimentology of the Lake Frome Group (with C. Gatehouse and T. Casey),
the stratigraphy of the Kanmantoo Group (with J. Gum, A. Burtt and P. Haines),
Neoproterzoic diamictites of Tasmania and South Australia (with N. Direen) and the
history of geology (with B. Cooper).
Publications:
Gehling, J.G., Jago, J.B., Paterson, J.R., Garcia-Bellido, D.C. & Edgecombe, G.D.
2011. The geological context of the Lower Cambrian (Series 2) Emu Bay Shale
Lagerstätte and adjacent stratigraphic units, Kangaroo Island, South Australia.
Australian Journal of Earth Sciences 58, 243-257.
Hall, P.A., Mckirdy, D.M., Halverson, G.P., Jago, J.B. & Gehling, J.G. (in press),
Biomarker and isotopic signatures of an early Cambrian Lagerstätte in the
Stansbury Basin, South Australia. Organic Geochemistry.
Jago, J.B. & Bentley, C.J. 2010. Geological significance of middle Cambrian
trilobites from near Melba Flat, western Tasmania. Australian Journal of Earth
Sciences, 57, 469-481.
Jago, J.B., Bentley, C.J. & Cooper, R.A. (in press). A Cambrian Series 3
(Guzhangian) fauna with Centropleura from Northern Victoria Land, Antarctica.
Association of Australasian Palaeontologists, Memoir.
Jago, J.B & Cooper, B.J. 2011. The Emu Bay Shale Lagerstätte: a history of
investigations. Australian Journal of Earth Sciences 58, 235-241.
Jago, J.B., Gatehouse, C.G., Powell, C. Mca., Casey, T. & Alexander, E.M. 2010. The
Dawson Hill Member of the Grindstone Range Sandstone in the Flinders Ranges,
South Australia. Transactions of the Royal Society of South Australia 134, 115124.
Lee, M.S.Y., Jago, J.B., Garcia-Bellido, D.C., Edgecombe, G.D., Gehling, J.G. &
Paterson, J.R. 2011. Modern optics in exceptionally preserved early Cambrian
arthropod eyes from Australia. Nature 474, 631-634.
Mckirdy, D.M., Hall, P.A., Nedin, C., Halverson, G.P., Michaelson, B.H., Jago, J.B.,
Gehling, J.G., & Jenkins, R.J.F. 2011. Paleoredox status and thermal alteration of
the lower Cambrian (Series 2) Emu Bay Shale Lagerstätte, South Australia.
Australian Journal of Earth Sciences 58, 259-272.
Ortega-Hernandez, J., Braddy, S.J., Jago, J.B. & Baillie, P.W. 2010. A new aglaspidid
arthropod from the Upper Cambrian of Tasmania. Palaeontology 53, 1065-1076.
Paterson, J.R., Edgecombe, G.D., Garcia-Bellido, D.C., Jago, J.B. & Gehling, J.G.
2010. Nektaspid arthropods from the lower Cambrian Emu Bay Lagerstätte, South
Australia, with reassessment of lamellipedian relationships. Palaeontology 53,
377-402.
Morgan Goodall Palaeo Pty Ltd, Maitland
Morgan Palaeo Associates has morphed into Morgan Goodall Palaeo Pty Ltd and now
has 13 associates servicing the oil and gas industry in Australia, Papua New Guinea
and Indonesia. Major workloads include Late Cretaceous to Early Jurassic PNG
rigsite jobs, North West Shelf Triassic to mid Cretaceous, and Queensland Jurassic
and Permian Coal Seam Gas work. Major research initiatives are in improving
resolution in the PNG Middle Jurassic, North West Shelf Triassic, and Queensland
42
non-marine Middle Jurassic. Publications on all these areas are in progress. The group
also undertakes sequence stratigraphic studies and basin analysis to develop
petroleum systems predictive models.
********************************************************************
VICTORIA
Museum Victoria, Melbourne
Tom Rich has been engaged in scanning the best preserved Cretaceous mammals of
Victoria for both archival and research purposes. At present his research efforts in this
area are focused on lower jaws of the monotreme Teinolophos, one of which is far
more complete than any previously found and a specimen of two worn and broken
upper tribosphenic molars that despite these drawbacks has attracted the attention of
seven co-investigators. Previously, no mammalian upper molars have been found in
Cretaceous deposits of Victoria although more than forty-five mandibles of mammals
have been collected from those rocks.
Publications:
Barrett, P., Rich, T.H., Vickers-Rich, P., Tumanova, T.A., Inglis, M., Pickering, D.,
Kool, L. & Kear, B. 2010. Ankylosaurian dinosaur remains from the Early
Cretaceous of southeastern Australia. Alcheringa 34, 205-217.
Barrett, P., Benson, R. & Vickers-Rich, P. 2011. First spinosaurid dinosaur from
Australia and the cosmopolitanism of Cretaceous dinosaur faunas. Biology
Letters. Published online 21 June 2011. Doi:10.1098/rsbl.2011.0466.
Benson, R.B.J., Barrett P.M., Rich, T.H., & Vickers-Rich, P. 2010. First tyrant reptile
from the southern continents. Science 327, 1613.
Benson, R.B.J., Barrett P. M., Rich, T.H., Vickers-Rich, P., Pickering, D., Holland, T.
2010. Response to Comment on "A Southern Tyrant Reptile". Science 329, 1013.
Kellner, W.A., Rich, T.H., Costa, F.R., Vickers-Rich, P., Rich, L.S.V., Kear, B.P.,
Walters, M. & Kool, L. 2010. New isolated pterodactyloid bones from the Albian
Toolebuc Formation (Western Queensland, Australia) with comments on the
Australian pterosaur fauna. Alcheringa 34, 219-230.
Rich, T.H., Galton, P.M. & Vickers-Rich, P. 2010. The holotype individual of the
ornithopod dinosaur Leaellynasaura amicagraphica Rich & Rich 1989 (late Early
Cretaceous, Victoria, Australia). Alcheringa 34, 385–396.
Rich, T.H. & Vickers-Rich, P. 2010. Pseudotribosphenic: The History of a Concept.
Vertebrata PalAsiatica 48, 336-347.
Trusler, P., Vickers-Rich P. & Rich, T.H. 2010. The Artist and the Scientists:
Bringing Prehistory to Life. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Woodward, H.N., Chinsamy, A., Rich, T.H. & Vickers-Rich, P. 2011. Growth
Dynamics of Australia’s Polar Dinosaurs. PLoS ONE 6(8):e2339.
Doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0023339.
Rolf Schmidt is exploring the use of X-Ray Tomography to create 3D images of
bryozoans colonies. This has already revealed previously unseen internal structures in
recent colonies of the morphologically complex genus Siphonicytara. He is aiming to
expand this into the fossil record, which may require the use of the Synchrotron to
differentiate skeleton from rock. He is collaborating with overseas colleagues to
image the internal structure of Palaeozoic bryozoans that can usually only be
43
examined using thin sections. He is also collaborating with Stephen Gallagher to
investigate the varying palaeoecology of bryozoans from an off-shore drill core that
covers the Oligocene glaciation events.
Publication:
Schmidt, R. & Bone, Y. (2007). Australian Cainozoic Bryozoa, 2: Bonellina gen. nov.
(Calloporidae, Cheilostomata), a new free-living bryozoan. Alcheringa 31, 67-84
Fons VandenBerg now works 3 days a week (Mon, Wed, Fri) at Museum Victoria as
an honorary associate, devoting his time to their large graptolite collection (to which
he contributed a significant portion during his GSV mapping days).
Deakin University, Burwood Campus
Guang Shi continues to work on Late Palaeozoic brachiopod faunas, biostratigraphy,
biogeography and extinction patterns. He has recently commenced collaborating with
colleagues from Argentina and Russia.
Publications (2010-2011):
Biakov, A.S. & Shi, G.R. 2010. Palaeobiogeography and palaeogeographical
implications of Permian marine bivalve faunas in Northeast Asia (Kolyma–
Omolon and Verkhoyansk–Okhotsk regions, northeastern Russia).
Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 298, 42-53.
Gong, Y.M., Shi, G.R., Zhang, L.J. & Ma, H.Z. 2010. Zoophycos composite
ichnofabrics and tiering from the Permian neritic facies in South China and
southeastern Australia. Lethaia 43, 182-196.
He, W.H., Twichett, R.J., Zhang, Y., Shi, G.R., Feng, Q.L., Yu, J.X., Wu, S.B., Peng,
X.F., 2011. Controls on body size during the Late Permian mass extinction event.
Geobiology 8, 309-412 (DOI: 10.1111/j.1472-4669.2010.00248.x).
Lee, S.M., Choi, D.K. & Shi, G.R. 2010. Upper Carboniferous brachiopods from the
Geumcheon-Jangseong Formation, Pyeongan, Pyeongan Supergroup, Taebaeksan
Basin, Korea. Journal of Paleontology 84, 417-443.
Pierson, R.R., Shi, G.R. & McCann, D.A. 2010. Bacchus Marsh Geology: Permian
landforms and palaeontology, Unique Triassic sedimentary outcrop and Miocene
coal mine  A Field Excursion Guide prepared for the 6th International
Brachiopod Congress 1-5 February 2010, Melbourne, Australia. Association of
Australasian Palaeontologists Field Guide Series No. 2. Geological Society of
Australia, 44 pp.
Shen, S.Z., Cao, C. Q., Zhang, Y.C., Li, W.Z., Shi, G.R., Wang, Y., Wu, Y.S., Ueno,
K., Henderson, C.M., Wang, X.D., Zhang, H., Wang, X.J. & Chen, J., 2010. A
Permian-Triassic carbonate sequence in southwestern Tibet, China and
implications of end-Permian mass extinction and early opening of the Neotethys.
Global and Planetary Change 73(1-2), 3-14.
Shi, G.R., Percival, I.G., Pierson, R.R. & Weldon, E.A. (editors). Program &
Abstracts, 6th International Brachiopod Congress, 1-5 February 2010, Melbourne,
Australia. Geological Society of Australia Abstracts No. 95, 129 pp.
Shi, G.R. & Waterhouse. J.B., 2010. Late Palaeozoic global changes affecting highlatitude environments and biotas: an introduction. Palaeogeography,
Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 298, 1-16.
Shi, G.R. & Waterhouse, J.B. (Guest Editors) 2010. Environmental processes and
biotic responses at high latitudes: a study of Late Palaeozoic sequences, biotas and
44
palaeoenvironmental changes in Gondwana and northern Eurasia. Special Issue
Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 298(1-2), 1-174.
Shi, G.R., Waterhouse, J.B. & McLoughlin, S. 2010. The Lopingian of Australasia: a
review of biostratigraphy, correlations, palaeogeography and palaeobiogeography.
Geological Journal 45, 230-263.
Shi, G.R., Weldon, E.A., Percival, I.G., Pierson, R.R. & Laurie, J.R. (eds) 2011.
Brachiopods: Extant and Extinct (Proceedings of the Sixth International
Brachiopod Congress, 1-5 February, 2010, Melbourne, Australia). Memoirs of the
Association of Australasian Palaeontologists 41, 366pp.
Shi, G.R., Weldon, E.A. & Pierson, R.R. 2010. Permian stratigraphy, sedimentology
and palaeontology of the southern Sydney Basin, south-east Australia − A field
excursion guide (2010 version) prepared for the 6th International Brachiopod
Congress, 1-5 February 2010, Melbourne, Australia. Association of Australasian
Palaeontologists Field Guide Series No. 1. Geological Society of Australia, 72 pp.
Taboada, A. C. & Shi, G.R. 2011. Taxonomic review and evolutionary trends of
Levipustulini and Absenticostini (Brachiopoda) from Argentina:
Palaeobiogeographic and palaeoclimatic implications. Memoirs of the Association
of Australasian Palaeontologists 41, 87-114.
Waterhouse. J.B. & Shi, G.R. 2010. Evolution in a cold climate. Palaeogeography,
Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 298, 17-30.
Mark Warne has current research interests in the fields of ostracod taxonomy,
environmental palaeoecology and late Cenozoic stratigraphy of SE Australia.
Presently he has collaborations on various taxonomic studies with Professor Robin
Whatley (University of Wales, Aberystwyth) and on modern continental shelf
biodiversity with Dr Gary Poore (Museum Victoria).
Current palaeontological research projects include:
Studies on the systematic taxonomy of Cenozoic Ostracoda from Australia and
the Southwest Pacific;
Late Miocene to early Pleistocene stratigraphy, sedimentology and ostracod
faunal cycles of the Bass Strait hinderland, southeast Australia;
Mid Holocene to Recent coastal palaeoenvironments and ostracod
assemblages of the Warrnambool and Port Fairy districts, southeast Australia.
Publications:
Warne, M.T. 2010. Review of Alataleberis McKenzie and Warne, 1986 and
description of Alatapacifica gen. nov., (Ostracoda, Crustacea) from the Cenozoic
of Australia. Alcheringa 34, 37-60.
Warne, M.T. (in press - 2012). Record of the deep marine Clinocythereis australis
Ayress and Swanson, 1991 (Ostracoda) from the late Miocene Tambo River
Formation, Gippsland Basin, Australia: Palaeo-oceanographic and biostratigraphic
implications. Alcheringa 36.
Warne, M.T. & Soutar, B. 2011. Pliocene coastal palaeomorphology and ostracod
faunas of the Bass Strait Hinterland, southeast Australia. Hydrobiologia doi:
10.1007/s10750-011-0777-2.
Nick Porch continues his research into human impacts on island ecosystems in the
Indo-Pacific. This research uses the recent fossil record of plants and insects to
contextualise the impact of both prehistoric and recent human arrival on island
biodiversity. It is demonstrating that a wide range of insects were extirpated following
human settlement regardless of whether this was in prehistory (Polynesia) or more
45
recently (Mascarenes). Also there is ample evidence that humans translocated a large
number of pest species including taxa that are ranked amongst the world's most
destructive invasive insects.
Publications:
Byrne, M., Steane, D.A., Joseph, L., Yeates, D.K., Jordan, G.J., Crayn, D., Aplin, K.,
Cantrill, D.J., Cook, L.G., Crisp, M.D., Keogh, J.S., Melville, J., Moritz, C.,
Porch, N., Sniderman, J.M.K., Sunnucks, P. & P.H. Weston. 2011. Decline of a
biome: evolution, contraction, fragmentation, extinction and invasion of the
Australian mesic zone biota. Journal of Biogeography 38: 1635-1656.
Rijsdijk, K.F., Zinke, J, de Louw, P.G.B., Hume, J.P., van der Plicht, H.(J.),
Hooghiemstra, H., Meijer, H.J.M., Vonhof, H.B., Porch, N., Florens, F.B.V.,
Baider, C., van Geel, B., Brinkkemper, J., Vernimmen, T. & Janoo, A. 2011. MidHolocene (4200 kyr BP) mass mortalities in Mauritius (Mascarenes): Insular
vertebrates resilient to climatic extremes but vulnerable to human impact. The
Holocene, DOI: 10.1177/0959683611405236.
Yichun Zhang is working on Late Palaeozoic foraminifers. His current study focuses
on the following topics:
(1) Carboniferous and Permian foraminifers in northern Tibet and their
palaeobiogeographic implications.
(2) Tectonic evolution of the Tibetan blocks: evidences from the Late Palaeozoic
fossil record.
(3) Size distribution patterns of Middle Permian fusulines in different latitude areas.
(4) Quantitative analysis of Middle Permian fusuline palaeobiogeography using
global fusuline database.
Publications:
Shen S.-z, Cao C.Q., Zhang Y.C., Li W.Z., Shi G.R., Wang Y., Wu Y.S., Ueno K.,
Henderson C.M., Wang X.D., Zhang H., Wang X.J. & Chen J. 2010. End-Permian
mass extinction and palaeoenvironmental changes in Neotethys: evidence from an
oceanic carbonate section in southwestern Tibet. Global and Planetary Change
73, 3-14.
Shen S.-z, Henderson C.M., Bowring S.A., Cao C.Q., Wang Y., Wang W., Zhang H.,
Zhang Y.C. & Mu L., 2010. High-resolution Lopingian (Late Permian) timescale
of South China. Geological Journal 45, 122-134.
Wang Y., Ueno K., Zhang Y.C. & Cao C.Q. 2010. The Changhsingian foraminiferal
fauna of a Neotethyan seamount: the Gyanyima limestone along the YarlungZangbo Suture in southern Tibet, China. Geological Journal 45, 308-318.
Zhang, Y.-c, 2010. Late Middle Permian (Guadalupian) fusuline fauna from the
Gyanyima area of Burang County, Tibet, China and its paleobiogeographic
implications. Acta Palaeotologica Sinica 49, 231-250.
Zhang, Y.-c, Cheng L.R. & Shen S.Z. 2010. Late Guadalupian (Middle Permian)
Fusuline Fauna from the Xiala Formation in Xainza County, Central Tibet:
Implication of the Rifting Time of the Lhasa Block. Journal of Paleontology 84,
955-973.
Elizabeth (Liz) Weldon is currently working on the taxonomy, biogeography and
palaeoecology of Permian brachiopods, bivalves and conulariids, principally from the
southern Sydney Basin, eastern Australia.
Liz is secretary of the Association of Australasian Palaeontologists.
Publication:
46
Shi, G.R., Weldon, E.A., Percival, I.G., Pierson, R.R. & Laurie, J.R. (eds), 2011
Brachiopods: extant and extinct – Proceedings of the Sixth International
Brachiopod Congress, 1-5 February, 2010, Burwood, Australia. Memoirs of the
Association of Australasian Palaeontologists 41, 366p.
Roger Pierson maintains an interest in Gondwanan Permian palynology (and relict
Permian landforms in Victoria, Australia).
Publication:
Shi, G.R., Weldon, E.A., Percival, I.G., Pierson, R.R. & Laurie, J.R. (eds), 2011
Brachiopods: extant and extinct – Proceedings of the Sixth International
Brachiopod Congress, 1-5 February, 2010, Melbourne, Australia. Memoirs of the
Association of Australasian Palaeontologists 41, 366p.
Sangmin Lee is a PhD student working on Permian brachiopods from Spitsbergen
and Alaska. He is also undertaking studies on micro-computed tomography (microCT) as applied to fossil brachiopods.
Darren Hastie is a PhD student whose current research involves the study of the
biodiversity and biogeography of Cenozoic shark fossil faunas in south east Australia.
Through the use of taxonomy and chemical analysis an insight can be gained into the
history of shark faunas and their environment to better understand current-day shark
ecology.
Wenzhong Li is a PhD student studying Permian brachiopods from several sections
in south-eastern Mongolia.
Publication:
Shen S.-z, Cao C.Q., Zhang Y.C., Li W.Z., Shi G.R., Wang Y., Wu Y.S., Ueno K.,
Henderson C.M., Wang X.D., Zhang H., Wang X.J. & Chen J. 2010. End-Permian
mass extinction and palaeoenvironmental changes in Neotethys: evidence from an
oceanic carbonate section in southwestern Tibet. Global and Planetary Change
73, 3-14.
Yang Zhang is a PhD student, working on the taxonomy of brachiopods and
biostratigraphy of conodonts both before and after the Permian-Triassic boundary. He
is also studying the evolution of shape and size of selected marine invertebrate faunas
across the Permian-Triassic boundary mass extinction in South China.
Michelle Guzel is a PhD student working on a mid-late Cretaceous ostracod fauna
from northwest Australia and its palaeobiogeographic significance. Her paper
“Jurassic and Early Cretaceous ostracods from Western Australia: what they reveal
about evolution of the Indian Ocean” is about to be published in the International
Year of Planet Earth Series, Earth and Life volume, edited by John A. Talent.
Monash University
Patricia Vickers-Rich continues her work on the Ediacaran biota with an emphasis
on that from Namibia which is the youngest Ediacaran assemblage known. This
programme is a joint one with Mike Hall, David Elliott and Peter Trusler of Monash
University, Guy Narbonne of Queens University, Ontario, and Andrey Ivantsov of the
47
Paleontological Institute, Moscow. Pat, Peter and Andrey are focusing much effort on
understanding exactly what the enigmatic Rangea is.
Peter, Pat together with Tom Rich have published The Artist and the
Scientists: Bringing Prehistory to Life, Cambridge University Press. The book
focuses on how the three of them worked together over three decades to produce a
number of items of palaeoart.
Pat heads the UNESCO International Geological Correlation Project
IGCP587, The Rise and Fall of the Vendian (Ediacaran) Biota
(www.geosci.monash.edu.au/precsite). She is also the Chair of the Australian IGCP
Committee. She also is Director of the Monash Science Centre, where geosciences
education to primary school kids has a priority (www.sciencecentre.monash.edu.au).
Publications:
Barrett, P.M., Benson, R.B.J., Rich, T.H. & Vickers-Rich, P. 2011. First spinosaurid
dinosaur from Australia and the cosmopolitanism of Cretaceous dinosaur faunas.
Biology Letters doi:10.1098/rsbl.2011.0466.
Barrett, P.M., Rich, T.H., Vickers-Rich, P., Tumanova, T.A., Inglis, M., Pickering,
D., Kool, L. & Kear, B.J. 2010. Ankylosaurian dinosaur remains from the Lower
Cretaceous of southern Australia. Alcheringa 34, 205-217.
Benson, R.B.J., Barrett, P.M., Rich, T.H. & Vickers-Rich, P. 2010. A Southern Tyrant
Reptile. Science 327(5973), 1613.
Benson, R.B.J., Barrett, P.M., Rich, T.H., Vickers-Rich, P., Pickering, D. & Holland,
T. 2010. Response to Comment on “A Southern Tyrant Reptile”. Science
329(5995), 1013.
Kear, B. P., Rich, T. H., Vickers-Rich, P., Ali, M.A., Al-Mufarrih, Y.A., Matari,
A.H., Al-Masary, A.M. & Halawany, M.A. 2010. A review of aquatic vertebrate
remains from the Middle-Upper Triassic Jihl Formation of Saudi Arabia.
Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria 122(1), 1-8.
Kellner, A.W.A., Rich, T.H., Costa, F., Vickers-Rich, P., Kear, B.P., Walters, M. &
Kool, M. 2010. New isolated pterodactyloid bones from the Albian Toolebuc
Formation (western Queensland, Australia) with comments on the Australian
pterosaur fauna. Alcheringa 34, 219-230.
Kool, L., Glenie, R., Flannery, T., Long, J., Rich, T., Hall, M., Wagstaff, B., SeegetsVilliers, D., Pawley, K., Pickering, D., Muranyi, M., Cleeland, M., Walters, M. &
Vickers-Rich, P. 2010. Dinosaur Dreaming: Exploring the Bass Coast of Victoria.
Monash Science Centre, Australia.
Martin, A.J., Rich, T.H., Hall, M., Vickers-Rich, P. & Vazquez-Prokopec, G. 2011. A
polar dinosaur-track assemblage from the Eumeralla Formation (Albian), Victoria,
Australia. Alcheringa doi: 10.1080/03115518.2011.597564.
Rich, T.H., Galton, P.M. & Vickers-Rich, P. 2010. The holotype individual of the
ornithopod dinosaur Leaellynosaura amicagraphica Rich and Rich, 1989 (late
Early Cretaceous, Victoria, Australia). Aheringa 34, 386-396.
Rich, T.H. & Vickers-Rich, P. 2010. Pseudotribosphenic: The history of a concept.
Vertebrata PalAsiatica 48(4), 337-349.
Rich, T.H., Vickers-Rich, P., Flannery, T.F., Pickering, D., Kool, L., Tait, A.M. &
Fitzgerald, E.M.G. 2009. A fourth Australian Mesozoic locality. In Albright, L.B.
III, ed. Papers on Geology, Vertebrate Paleontology, and Biostratigraphy in
Honor of Michael O. Woodburne. Museum of Northern Arizona Bulletin 65,
Flagstaff, Arizona.
Trusler, P., Vickers-Rich, P. & Rich, T.H. 2010. The Artist and the Scientists –
Bringing Prehistory to Life. Cambridge University Press.
48
Vickers-Rich, P., Kozdroj, W., Kattan, F., Leonov, M., Ivantsov, A., Johnson, P.R.,
Linnemann, U., Hofmann, M., Al Garni, S., Al Qubsani, Shamari, A., Al Barakati,
A., Al Kaff, M.H., Ziolkowska-Kozdroj, M., Rich, T., Trusler, P. & Rich, B.
2010. Reconnaissance for an Ediacaran fauna, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Saudi
Geological Survey Technical Report SGA-TR-2010-8
Woodward H.N., Rich T.H., Chinsamy, A. & Vickers-Rich, P. 2011. Growth
dynamics of Australia’s polar dinosaurs. PLoS ONE 6(8), e23339.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0023339
Monash Applied Palaeontology and Basin Studies Group Profile
Our research continues on systematic and applied palaeontology and basins with
respect to predictability of petroleum-bearing facies, employing diverse, integrated
methods in palaeontology and pure basic research on palaeo-equator to poles
Cretaceous and Paleogene biotas and palaeoenvironments during the last major
greenhouse phase of the Phanerozoic. Our current industry and institution portfolio
includes Shell International, Shell Australia, Origin Energy, Cue Energy, Benaris
Group, Geoscience Australia, University of Texas-Austin, National Geographic
Society, Australian Research Council, among others. The last five years have seen a
dramatic increase in research funding for the group of >$1 million and number of
keen graduate students in the field, with completed projects in the South Atlantic
(Brazil-W Africa), New Zealand-Chatham Islands, Antarctica, and many basins in
Australia. And with it, many submitted confidential industry reports, peer-reviewed
papers and monographs/books. A major book by Jeff Stilwell and co-author John
Long (Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County), entitled Frozen in Time:
Prehistoric Life in Antarctica and published by CSIRO (248 pp., hardbound), is due
out the 12th October, representing the first comprehensive account of the fossil record
of Antarctica.
Staff Roles and Expertise 2011
A./Prof. Jeffrey Stilwell (Chief Investigator and Leader) - Mesozoic-Cenozoic
biostratigraphy, macro- and micropalaeontology, and palaeoenvironments
Prof. Mike Hall - Basin Analysis and seismic interpretation
Prof. Emer. Ray Cas - Volcanology, sedimentology and palaeoenvironments
A./Prof. Alan Tait (Honorary Fellow) - Sedimentology and stratigraphy
Dr Ray Bate (UK) – Ostracod biostratigraphy – external consultant and advisor
Dr Alan Partridge (Biostrata Pty Ltd, Melbourne) - Palynomorph biostratigraphy –
external consultant and advisor
Dr Andre Coffa (Cue Energy Resources, Melbourne) - Petroleum geoscience –
external consultant and advisor
Dr Kath Grey (Honorary Research Fellow; Geological Survey, WA) - Microbialites,
stromatolites, inter-tidal biostratigraphy and palaeoenvironments
Current PhD, MSc and Honours Students and Projects
49
Mr Hamed Aghaei (PhD) – ‘The Structural, Stratigraphic and Hydrocarbon Potential
Evolution of the Onshore Gippsland Basin, Victoria, Australia’
Mr David Briguglio (PhD) – ‘Structural and Stratigraphic Evolution of the Onshore
Otway Basin, Western Victoria’
Mr Tom Brougham (PhD) – ‘Paleozoic conodont biostratigraphy of Australia’
Mr James Driscoll (PhD) – ‘Upper Cambrian-Lower Ordovician sediments, northern
Tasmania: An Analogue for the Development of Clastic Reservoirs’
Mr Amir Mahmud (PhD) – ‘Basin Evolution Of Upper Cambrian-Ordovician
Sediments Exposed in West Coast Range Of Tasmania’
Mr Chris Mays (PhD) – ‘Mid-Cretaceous Greenhouse Environments and Floral
Ecosystems of the South Polar Region (75-80°S): The Tupuangi Formation, Chatham
Islands, Zealandia’ [dissertation submitted September 2011]
Mr Stephen Poropat (PhD) – ‘Early Cretaceous Ostracoda of the Santos Basin,
Brazil: Biostratigraphic Analysis and Palaeoenvironmental Interpretation of the PreSalt Strata’ [dissertation submitted May 2011]
Ms Leonor Sorrentino-Mariconda (PhD) – Evolution and Facies Architecture of
Paleogene Surtseyan Volcanoes: Red Bluff Tuff Formation, Chatham Islands, SW
Pacific’
Mr Daniel Thompson (PhD) – ‘Coquinas as Reservoirs in the South Atlantic:
improving predictability in the Pre-Salt of Brazil and W Africa’
Ms Shirin Seirafi (MSc Prelim.) – ‘Stratigraphic and Structural Evolution of a
Neogene Fore-arc Basin, Eastern Pahiatua, North Island, New Zealand’
Mr Stephen Cox (Hons) – ‘Investigation of Palaeoenvironments Utilizing Basin
Studies and Applied Ichnology within the Otway Basin, Victoria’
James Ell (Hons) – ‘Structural and Stratigraphic Characterization of Continental
Break-up: the Otway Basin vs the Gippsland Basin’
Ms Shannon Herley (Hons) – ‘The Determination of Palaeoenvironments Employing
Applied Ichnology and Basin Studies within the Offshore Otway Basin, Victoria’
Mr Bow Kocijan (Hons) – ‘Deformation Along the Taranaki Fault System: Regional
Structural Framework of the Taranaki Fault System and Associated Hydrocarbon
Plays Derived from Seismic Data, Well-log Data and Field Mapping’
Mr David Briguglio (Hons, H1, 2010) – ‘Stratigraphic Architecture of the Bass Basin
– a Detailed Synthesis Employing Integrated Basin Structure and Applied
Palaeontology’
Ms Joanna Kowalczyk (Hons, H1, 2010) – ‘Petroleum Prospectivity, Stratigraphy
and Structural Architecture of the Southern Bass Basin: A Detailed Synthesis
Employing Integrated Basin Studies and Applied Palaeontology’
Mr Luke Skidmore (Hons, H2, 2010) – ‘Early Cretaceous Arthropods of the
Koonwarra Fossil Bed, Victoria: New Discoveries and Refined Taxonomic
Interpretations’
Mr Seth Paddle (Hons, H1, 2010) – ‘Dead Clades Walking: The Losers in the Sprint
for Recovery’ [Winner of Bruce Hobbs Medal]
50
RMIT University
PO Box 2476, Melbourne, Victoria 3000
Earth & Oceanic Systems Research Group
Jessica Reeves continues to work with modern and subfossil ostracods. Recent
research has focussed on differentiating the community response to a range of
ecological impacts including changes in salinity, nutrient levels and heavy metal
contaminants and how these may be differentiated in the sedimentary record. She is
also co-coordinator of OZ-INTIMATE, integrating marine, terrestrial and ice cores
records in the greater Australian region. This project will focus on filling in some of
the spatial and temporal gaps we have in climate reconstructions of the past 30 ka.
John Buckeridge (john.buckeridge@rmit.edu.au) continues work on the
palaeontology, palaeoecology and distribution of cirripedes. He is currently looking at
systems used by marine invertebrates, especially cirripedes and poriferans, to
withstand fluctuations in oceanic systems. New projects in conjunction with these
include an assessment of deep-sea cirripedes with the British Antarctic Survey and
New Zealand’s NIWA. Further field work, with Hamish Campbell (GNS), is planned
for the Chatham Islands in early 2012.
Jessica and John successfully re-introduced the teaching of palaeontology at RMIT
through a field school in the second semester, 2010. The trip focused on the
palaeoecology of the Palaeocene-Miocene, preserved in sequence along Victoria’s
Great Ocean Road, with reference to Holocene and present conditions. Even though
our first student cohort was small, student feedback has been very positive – with
some of the best responses for any course at RMIT University in 2010.
Publications:
Buckeridge, J.S. 2011. Of trees, geese and cirripedes: man's quest for understanding.
Integrative Zoology 6: 3-12.
Buckeridge, J.S. 2011. Taphonomy and systematics of a new late Cretaceous verrucid
barnacle (Cirripedia, Thoracica) from Canterbury, New Zealand. Palaeontology
53: 365-372.
Buckeridge, J.S. 2011. 4 Es: Ethics, Engineering, Economics & Environment. 2nd
Edition, Federation Press, Sydney. 127 pp. ISBN 978-1-86278-815-0.
Buckeridge, J.S. 2010. Some biological consequences of environmental change: a
study using barnacles (Cirripedia: Balanomorpha) and gum trees (Angiospermae:
Myrtaceae). Integrative Zoology 5: 122-131.
Buckeridge, J.S. 2010. Barnacles, biologists, bigots and natural selection… Confound
and exterminate the whole tribe! Biology International 47: 5-10.
Winkelmann, K., Buckeridge, J.S., Costa, A.C., Dionísio, M.A.M., Medeiros, A.,
Cachao, M. & Ávila, S.P. 2010. Zullobalanus santamariaensis sp. nov. a new late
Miocene species of the family Archaeobalanidae (Cirripedia: Thoracica), from the
Azores. Zootaxa 2680: 33-44.
Buckeridge, J.S. 2010. Subclass Thecostraca. In W.R. Webber, G.D. Fenwick, J.M.
Bradford-Grieve, S.H. Eagar, J.S. Buckeridge, G.C. Poore, E.W. Dawson, L.
Watling, J.B. Jones, J.B. Wells, N.L. Bruce, S.T. Ahyong, K. Larsen, M.A.
Chapman, J. Olesen, J. Ho, J.D. Green, R.J. Shiel, C.E. Rocha, A-N. Lörz, G.J.
Bird, W.A. Charleston. Chapter 8. Phylum Arthropoda, Subphylum Crustacea shrimps, crabs, lobsters, barnacles, slaters, and kin. Gordon, D.P. (Ed.). The New
51
Zealand Inventory of Biodiversity Volume 2: 98-232. University of Canterbury
Press, Christchurch, New Zealand.
Reeves, J.M. (Ed.) 2010. Biodiversity research – Safeguarding the Future. Biology
International special publication No. 48, 92 pp. ISSN 02532069.
Reeves, J.M. & Cohen, T.C. 2010. OZ-INTIMATE. Quaternary Australasia 27: 2125.
Reeves, J.M. 2010. The Barwon Estuary – see change? Proceedings of the
Australasian Quaternary Association Biennial Meeting. 11-16th July, 2010,
Stradbroke Island p. 10.
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WESTERN AUSTRALIA
Tony Cockbain reports that he is waiting to move into the T rex home for retired
palaeontologists. Maintaining an interest in palaeontology but appalled at how out of
date I am. Truly an old fossil!
V & C Semeniuk Research Group, Warwick
Over the past year, Vic Semeniuk, in collaboration with Chris Semeniuk and Joy
Unno, within the V & C Semeniuk Research Group, continues to research Quaternary
stratigraphic sequences and their fauna and flora in Western Australia along the coast
and in wetlands, and develop Holocene and Pleistocene models for interpreting
ancient sequences and climate and palaeoecology. In collaboration with Ian Percival
and Barry Webby, Vic has commenced investigations with the objective to
reconstruct palaeoenvironments and palaeoecology of the Ordovician limestones at
Bowan Park and Cliefden Caves in central NSW. Vic has also commenced
investigations with Barry Webby into the ultrastructure of stromatoporoids, their
diagenesis, and the interactions between stromatoporoid and enclosing sediments. A
paper on the subaerial alteration of Ordovician limestones of the Daylesford
Limestone at Bowan Park, with description of remanie fossils along subaerial
unconformities, and the control fossils have on microkarst development of these
limestones, was published in Proceedings of the Linnean Society of NSW.
Publications:
Semeniuk V. 2010. A note on calcite precipitates as encrustations around sea rush
roots and as microlaminae in high tidal zones of western Leschenault Inlet
estuary. Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia 93, 195-199.
Semeniuk V. 2011. Microkarst, palaeosols, and calcrete along subaerial
disconformities in the Ordovician Daylesford Limestone, Bowan Park, central
western New South Wales. Proceedings of the Linnaean Society of New South
Wales 132, 187-220.
Semeniuk V., Manolis C., Webb G.J.W. & Mawson P. 2011. The Saltwater
Crocodile, Crocodylus porosus Schneider 1801, in the Kimberley coastal region.
Journal of the Royal Society of Western Australia 94, 407-416.
Geological Survey of Western Australia, Perth
52
Kath Grey continues work on Archean and Proterozoic acritarchs and stromatolites.
Study of 3.4 Ga year old Strelley Pool Formation stromatolites continues and a
description of the Trendall State Geoheritage Reserve and its stromatolites was
published with Arthur Hickman and Martin Van Kranendonk. This included the first
description of an axial zone (almost certainly a biogenic feature) from large conical
stromatolites in the early Archean. Further work on axial zones is in progress with
David Flannery, Malcolm Walter and Stan Awramik. Also in preparation is a
publication on the proposed ‘Dawn of Life Trail’ south of Marble Bar. This year, a
detailed inventory of stromatolites and other structures was made during the
Spaceward Bound expedition organized jointly by the Mars Society and NASA. The
information gathered will help determine whether the site is suitable for development
as a geotourist trail that will allow the public to view some of the oldest fossils in the
world and reduce pressure on key scientific sites, like the Trendall Geoheritage
Reserve.
Drillcore from near Wiluna contains the stromatolite Segosia finlaysoniensis,
indicating correlation with the Bubble Well Member of the Juderina Formation, basal
Yerrida Formation in the Yerrida Basin. The Lomagundi-Jatulian positive carbon
isotope excursion (2.2-2.1 Ga) was recorded had previously from an outcrop of this
stromatolite. The excursion is associated with evaporite deposition around the world
and has been recognised globally. In North America, the excursion occurs in the Kona
Dolomite. Juderina Formation and Kona Dolomite stromatolites are identical, so
Segosia finalaysoniensis needs reassigning to Djulmekella.
Studies of Neoproterozoic stromatolites and microfossils continued.
Correlations based on integrated results from stromatolite biostratigraphy, palynology,
and stable isotope analysis are holding up. Further work in the western Amadeus
Basin has confirmed stromatolite distributions recognized during preliminary studies
last year. Work continues with Stan Awramik on a ‘Microbialite Handbook’. Most of
the illustrations have been compiled and the manuscript should be submitted in the
next few months.
A management plan for State Geoheritage Reserves was published. Approval
is now needed to carry out any activities within a Reserve. Data capture continues
both for a stromatolite database (now containing c.2000 records) and a broader
database of all Western Australian fossils in the GSWA collection that will eventually
contain some 14 000 records. A large number of outstanding fossil loans have been
called in to meet requirements under federal legislation on fossil exports. The level of
information and assistance provided to academics and industry remains high and
covers a diversity of topics ranging from Archean stromatolites and microfossils,
through Proterozoic biostratigraphy to modern microbialite environments.
Retirement is looming after 40 years with GSWA, although it has been
delayed until late 2012. It is hoped that most of the above projects will have been
completed by then, although Kath plans to continue work on scientific projects once
she has left GSWA.
Publications:
Note: Any papers published by the Geological Survey of Western Australia (GSWA)
are available free if you go to:
www.dmp.wa.gov.au/gswapublications
Use the DOWNLOAD button to obtain a .pdf file (download, print or both). All
GSWA publications (>100 years worth) are available – just type in appropriate search
criteria. Now you can get a digital copy of that obscure monograph published at the
beginning of the 19th century!
53
Grey, K., Roberts, F.I., Freeman, M.J., Hickman, A.H., Van Kranendonk, M.J. &
Bevan, A.W.R. 2010. Management plan for State Geoheritage Reserves.
Geological Survey of Western Australia, Record 2010/13, 23p.
Hickman, A.H., Van Kranendonk, M.J. & Grey, K. 2011. State Geoheritage Reserve
R50149 (Trendall Reserve), North Pole, Pilbara Craton, Western Australia –
geology and evidence for early Archean life. Geological Survey of Western
Australia, Record 2011/10, 32p.
Curtin University, Perth
Kate Trinajstic is working on the evolution of novel structures, soft-tissue
preservation, palaeoenvironments and biostratigraphy of early-vertebrates from the
Canning Basin, Western Australia. Current research interests have concentrated on the
mechanism of soft tissue preservation within the Gogo fishes as part of a QEII
Fellowship with Catherine Boisvert, Zerina Johanson, Moya Smith and Per Ahlberg
and collaboration with Kliti Grice (Curtin Chemistry). Investigations into the
histology and evolution of bone using synchrotron tomography continue with an
international team at the European Synchrotron Facility Grenoble France. In addition
I am one of the CIs on the ARC Discovery project ‘Origin of jaws - the greatest
unsolved mystery of early vertebrate evolution’ (2010-2012) with John Long, Gavin
Young, Carole Burrow, Zhu Min, Charlie Marshall and Tim Senden. Work continues
on Upper Devonian biostratigraphy using both conodonts and microvertebrates in the
Canning Basin as part of an ARC Linkage grant. The 13th Conference on
Australasian Vertebrate Evolution Palaeontology and Systematics, was held in Perth
27-30 April 2011, jointly hosted by Curtin University, the Western Australian
Museum, Murdoch University and the University of Western Australia. Researchers,
both international and national, spoke on a number of aspects of vertebrate evolution,
including functional morphology, phylogeny, ecology and extinctions.
Publications
Aboglila S., Grice K., Trinajstic K., Snape C. & Williford K.H. 2011. The
significance of 24-norcholestanes, 4-methylsteranes and dinosterane in oils and
source-rocks from East Sirte Basin (Libya). Applied Geochemistry 26, 1694-1705.
Aboglila, S., Grice, K., Trinajstic, K., Williford, K.H. & Dawson, D. 2010. Biomarker
distributions and compound specific isotopes of carbon and hydrogen to delineate
hydrocarbon characteristics in the East Sirte Basin (Libya). Organic Geochemistry
41, 1249-1258.
Ahlberg, P.E, Trinajstic, K.M., Long, J.A. & Johanson, Z. 2009. Pelvic claspers
confirm chondrichthyan-like internal fertilization in arthrodires. Nature 460, 888889.
Burrow, C., Long, J. & Trinajstic, K. 2009. Disarticulated acanthodian and
chondrichthyan remains from the upper Middle Devonian Aztec Siltstone,
southern Victoria Land, Antarctica. Antarctic Science 21, 71-88.
Choo, B., Long, J. & Trinajstic K. 2009. A new genus and species of basal
actinopterygian fish from the Upper Devonian Gogo Formation of Western
Australia. Acta Zoologica 90, 194-210.
George, A.D., Chow, N. & Trinajstic, K. 2009. Syndepositional fault control on lower
Frasnian platform evolution, Lennard Shelf, Canning Basin, Australia. Geology 37
(4), 331-334.
54
George, A, Chow, N. & Trinajstic, K.M. 2006. Reply to discussion on Tectonic
control on development of a Frasnian-Famennian (Late Devonian) palaeokarst
surface, Canning Basin reef complexes, northwestern Australia. Australian
Journal of Earth Science 52, 666-669.
George, A.D., Trinajstic, K.M. & Chow, N. 2009. Frasnian reef evolution and
palaeogeography, SE Lennard Shelf, Canning Basin, Australia. In Late Devonian
Paleogeography and Paleoecology. Geological Society of London Special
Publication 314, 73-107.
Long, J.A. & Trinajstic, K. 2010. The Late Devonian Gogo Formation Lägerstatten of
Western Australia: Exceptional Early Vertebrate Preservation and Diversity.
Annual Reviews of Earth and Planetary Sciences 38, 255-279.
Long, J.A., Trinajstic, K.M. & Johanson, Z. 2009. Devonian arthrodire embryos and
the origin of internal fertilization in vertebrates Nature 457, 1124-1127.
Long, J.A., Trinajstic, K.M., Young, G. & Senden, T. 2008. Live birth in the
Devonian. Nature 453, 651-653.
Trinajstic, K., 2009. Polymorphism, variation and evolutionary change in early
vertebrates from the Gogo Formation, Western Australia. In Brocx, M. (ed) Royal
Society of Western Australia Symposium on Evolutionary Biology. Journal of the
Royal Society of Western Australia 92 (4), 155-160
Trinajstic, K. & Dennis Bryan, K., 2009. Phenotypic plasticity, polymorphism and
phylogeny within placoderms. Acta Zoologica 90, 83-102.
Trinajstic, K.M. & George, A.D. 2009. Microvertebrate biostratigraphy of Upper
Devonian (Frasnian) carbonate rocks in the Canning and Carnarvon Basins of
Western Australia. Palaeontology 52, 641-659.
Trinajstic, K.M. & Hazelton, M. 2007. Ontogeny, phenotypic variation and
phylogenetic implications of arthrodires from the Gogo Formation, Western
Australia. Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology 27, 571-583.
Trinajstic, K.M. & Long, J.A. 2009. A new genus and species of Ptyctodont
(Placodermi) from the Late Devonian Gneudna Formation, Western Australia, and
an analysis of ptyctodont phylogeny. Geological Magazine 146(5), 743-760.
Trinajstic, K., Marshall, C., Long, J. & Bifield, K. 2007. Exceptional preservation of
nerve and muscle tissues in Devonian placoderm fish and their phylogenetic
implications. Biology Letters 3(2), 197-200.
Trinajstic, K., Marshall, C., Long, J. & Bifield, K. 2008. Response to Friedman and
Brazeau on Exceptional preservation of nerve and muscle tissues in Devonian
placoderm fish and their phylogenetic implications. Biology Letters 4 (1), 104105.
********************************************************************
NEW ZEALAND
GNS Science
P.O. Box 30368 Lower Hutt, New Zealand.
The paleontologists at GNS Science are mostly grouped in the newly named
Department of Paleontology. The Department Head is Lucia Roncaglia who has
recently succeeded Chris Hollis. In this issue we list our full complement of
palaeontologists including two from the Department of Active Landscapes, two from
the Department of Petroleum Geoscience and one from the Strategy Group. Dallas
55
Mildenhall, Ian Raine, and Roger Cooper provide fuller statements including their
bibliographies at the end.
Alan Beu a.beu@gns.cri.nz Alan works on Cenozoic and living Mollusca. Recently
he has completed his series of papers on Plio-Pleistocene Molluscs of New Zealand,
with a summary paper in press in "Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand", and
is preparing papers revising Zittel's New Zealand molluscs from the 'Novara'
Expedition, revising Antarctic Neogene Pectinidae based on collections from
ANDRILL core 2A in the Ross Sea, recording Holocene fossil molluscs from
trenches through terraces at Table Cape, Mahia Peninsula, and recording a great
variety of Tonnoidean gastropods dredged by the Museum National d'Histoire
Naturelle, Paris, fom French Polynesia. He continues his long-term project to revise
the New Zealand Cenozoic fossils scallops.
Kyle Bland k.bland@gns.cri.nz Kyle is a geologist in the Department of Petroleum
Geoscience and works on a wide variety of research and commercial projects. He has
a background in sedimentology, geological mapping, outcrop geology, sequence
stratigraphy and paleontology of Plio-Pleistocene molluscs, primarily in central and
eastern North Island. His research interests include developing paleogeographic
reconstructions for lower North Island during the late Neogene and understanding
petroleum systems in New Zealand's sedimentary basins. Kyle has spent several
years studying the Neogene geology of Hawke’s Bay and Wanganui Basin, and is
currently involved with the compilation of the GNS Science QMAP Hawke’s Bay
sheet, which will be published in the coming months. In the past couple of years has
also been involved in the production of a revised suite of paleogeographic maps of
Taranaki Basin, which have recently been published.
Hamish Campbell h.campbell@gns.cri.nz (Strategy Group). Hamish has expertise in
Permian, Triassic and Jurassic fossils of New Zealand and New Caledonia. In the past
decade he has primarily been involved in provenance research on NZ’s older
sedimentary and metamorphic rocks. However, he is also involved in diverse
geological problems of both academic and industry interest that relate to PermianJurassic paleontology and biostratigraphy of NZ.
Kate Clark k.clark@gns.cri.nz (Department of Active Landscapes). Kate specialises
in Quaternary paleoenvironmetal reconstructions using formanifera. Her main areas of
interest are using intertidal benthic foraminifera to identify sudden relative sea level
changes associated with earthquake-induced coastal uplift and subsidence, and using
foraminifera as a tool in paleotsunami studies.
Ursula Cochran u.cochran@gns.cri.nz (Department of Active Landscapes). Ursula
specialises in Quaternary paleoecological reconstructions using diatom microfossils.
Her main applications of interest are natural hazards (identifying evidence of past
large earthquakes and tsunami at the coastal zone) and paleoclimate (reconstructing
hydrological and depositional change in lakes). She is also keen to improve our
database of modern analogue diatom samples and their use in calibration of recent
fossil samples.
Giuseppe Cortese g.cortese@gns.cri.nz Giuseppe is a radiolarian specialist mainly
interested in using statistical techniques and microfossil abundance data to
56
quantitatively reconstruct Pleistocene paleoclimate, particularly at mid to high
latitudes. He also introduced a morphometric approach to diatom valve sizes as a tool
to track ecosystem and oceanographic changes in the Southern Ocean.
James Crampton j.crampton@gns.cri.nz James specialises in Cretaceous
biostratigraphy and time scale development, quantitative biostratigraphy both for
research and industry, quantitative description of biological form, and
macroevolutionary dynamics of New Zealand's rich Cenozoic mollusc fauna.
Erica Crouch e.crouch@gns.cri.nz Erica is a marine and terrestrial palynologist with
a particular interest in the paleogene. She is currently working on a dinoflagellate
zonation of the New Zealand Paleocene.
Martin Crundwell m.crundwell@gns.cri.nz Martin specialises in Neogene
foraminfera and is involved in consultancy work for the petroleum industry, reasearch
into climate change, post-graduate teaching at Victoria University of Wellington. He
also participated in the recent Integrated Ocean Drilling Programme (IODP Exp 317)
Canterbury Basin Sea Level Expedition.
Chris Hollis c.hollis@gns.cri.nz Chris is a micropaleontologist and event
stratigrapher specialising in Cretaceous-Paleogene radiolarians and Paleogene
paleoclimate research.
Craig Jones c.jones@gns.cri.nz Craig maintains an active interest in vertebrate
paleontology and biostratigraphy but works just down the corridor in the Department
of Petroleum Geoscience.
Liz Kennedy l.kennedy@gns.cri.nz Liz specialises in leaf physiognomic analysis for
interpretation of paleoclimate, and is working on Paleogene and Late Cretaceous
macrofossil floras. She is also researching the "Oligocene drowning" problem with
Dallas Mildenhall (i.e. how much of the New Zealand landmass was submerged at the
peak of the Late Oligocene transgression?).
Denise Kulhanek d.kulhanek@gns.cri.nz Denise is a calcareous nannofossil
micropaleontologist with experience in Cretaceous and Cenozoic biostratigraphy and
paleoceanography. Her current research is focussed on Paleogene biostratigraphy and
paleoclimate, and she is also involved in consultancy work for the petroleum industry.
Richard Levy r.levy@gns.cri.nz Richard is a stratigrapher/marine palynologist with
an interest in Antarctic climate and ice sheet history.
Xun Li x.li@gns.cri.nz is a Quaternary palynologist currently working in
melissopalynology.
Hugh Morgans h.morgans@gns.cri.nz Hugh works with Cenozoic foraminifera
primarily for the oil industry but his research interest is in the Paleogene.
Lucia Roncaglia l.roncaglia@gns.cri.nz Lucia's main expertise is in the study of
stratigraphy and depositional environments of Late Cretaceous to Recent sediments
through the analysis of marine palynology and she is the senior author of several
57
scientific publications. Also, she is trained Operations geologist and coordinated well
operations in the Danish sector of the North Sea from 2005. Lucia joined GNS
Science in 2006.
Poul Schioler p.schioler@gns.cri.nz Poul specialises in Cretaceous and Paleogene
dinoflagellates and palynofacies analysis and is involved in consultancy work for the
petroleum industry.
George Scott (Emeritus Research Scientist) george.scott@gns.cri.nz George carries
out morphometric studies of Neogene planktonic foraminifera.
John Simes j.simes@gns.cri.nz John is the collection manager for the National
Paleontology Collection and as well, still keeps an eye on the many conodont and
radiolarian collections from the Mesozoic and Paleozoic that he prepared in a
previous life.
Graeme Stevens (Emeritus Research Scientist) Graeme has completed a study of the
New Zealand Jurassic Onychites (cephalopod hooklets for non-cephalopod folks) and
it has been published in NZ Jl Geol. & Geophysics 53: 395-412. He has also
completed a review paper for Rev. Palaeobiol. Geneva entitled: 'The Early Jurassic of
New Zealand: Refinements of the Biostratigraphy and Palaeogeography'. It is
currently going through the refereeing process. His current project is Otapirian and
Aratauran sequences along the northern Marokopa coast (SW Auckland) and
observations on the Triassic/Jurassic boundary in New Zealand', to be published in
NZ Jl Geol. & Geophysics.
Percy Strong p.strong@gns.cri.nz Percy specialises in Paleogene and Mesozoic
foraminifera and over the past months has been involved in consultancy work for the
petroleum industry.
Marianna Terezow m.terezow@gns.cri.nz Marianna is a paleontology technician at
GNS and, besides working on collection curation, is often involved in public
education outreach. In the past couple of years she has worked on three major
outreach projects. After the culmination of the NZ Fossils: Dead Precious! touring
fossil exhibition, Marianna created and released an online virtual tour of the
exhibition, which can be found on the public GNS website. Marianna also has created
a number of fossil 3D images which are also published on the GNS website. In 2010,
together with Dr. James Crampton, Marianna co-authored The Kiwi Fossil Hunter's
Handbook (Random House). She also helps provide photographic support for research
publications.
Marcus Vandergoes m.vandergoes@gns.cri.nz Marcus is a terrestrial Quaternary
Paleoclimate Scientist specialising in pollen, chironimids (non-biting midges) and
paleoecology.
Roger Cooper (Emeritus Research Scientist) r.cooper@gns.cri.nz Roger is using the
CONOP graptolite data set, with Peter Sadler, to derive precise macroevolutionary
rates (extinction, origination, biodiversity change) for the graptolite clade at the
species level, with a resolution of better than 0.1 m.y. Graptolites span the great
Ordovician biodiversification event, and the Hirnantian mass extinction and appear to
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provide a sensitive proxy for environmental change in the marine pelagic
environment. We can clearly distinguish between diversity increase that results from
increased origination rate and that which results from decreased extinction rate. All
the major positive excursions in delta 13C coincide with sharp diversity loss in
graptolites. Final revisions to the Ordovician and Silurian parts of the global
geochronological scale (GGS) for the forthcoming Elsevier book (Gradstein et al. eds)
due out in 2012 (with Pete Sadler and Mike Melchin). The stratigraphy of a Late
Cambrian to Ordovician (Sandbian) structural inlier in the Lake Daniells - Maruia
area of southwest Nelson, mapped many years ago by Cooper and Simes, has been
described as part of a joint project with Yongyi Zhen (who describes the conodonts)
and Ian Percival (who describes the brachiopods). With Chris Bentley and Jim Jago, a
Cambrian (Guzhanian) Centropleura fauna (trilobites) from Northern Victoria Land,
Antarctica has been described.
Publications:
Crampton, J.S. & Cooper, R.A., 2010. The state of Paleontology in New Zealand.
Palaeontologia Electronica 13 (2) 4E: 9p.
Wright, A.J. & Cooper, R.A., 2010. Trilobita In: Gordon, D., (ed.) The New Zealand
Inventory of Biodiversity: Volume two, Kingdom Animalia, Chaetognatha,
Ecdysozoa, Ichnofossils. Canterbury University Press, Christchurch. Pp 45-49.
Crampton, J.S., Cooper, R.A., Beu, A. G., Foote, M. & Marshall, B. A. 2010. Biotic
controls on species duration – interactions between traits in marine molluscs.
Paleobiology 36(2):204-223.
Sadler, P.M. & Cooper, R.A. 2011. Graptoloid evolutionary rates: sharp contrast
between Ordovician and Silurian. Pp. 499-504. In J.-C. Gutierrez-Marco, I.
Rabano, and D. Garcia-Bellido, eds. Ordovician of the World. 11th International
Symposium on the Ordovician System, Madrid. Insituto Geologico y Minero de
Espana.
Percival, I.G., Cooper, R.A., Zhen, Y.Y., Simes, J.E. & Wright, A.J. 2011. Recent
discoveries and a review of the Ordovician faunas of New Zealand. Pp. 421-428.
In J. C. Gutierrez-Marco, Rabano, I., Garcia-Bellido, D., eds. Ordovician of the
World. Instituto Geologica y Minero de Espana, Madrid.
Ian Raine. i.raine@gns.cri.nz Ian has in recent years found himself spending an
increasing amount of time in consulting work for petroleum exploration, both in
multi-well biostratigraphic reviews, and in miospore dating of Cretaceous-Paleogene
sections in new wells. Some of this has spun off into stratigraphic reviews of the
Taranaki Basin, with Karen Higgs and others, and into new efforts aimed at
improving the Late Cretaceous miospore zonation, including a detailed study of the
Campanian-Maastrichtian Waipara River section (Canterbury Basin) now underway.
Ian continues to work with colleagues Liz Kennedy and Erica Crouch on the
Paleocene-Eocene boundary, and with a number of overseas palynologists, including
US workers Rosie Askin and Sophie Warny on ANDRILL cores and other Antarctic
Cenozoic projects, and with Vivi Vajda (Lund University) on the K/T and
Triassic/Jurassic boundaries.
Bibliography for 2006-2011:
Prebble, J.G., Raine, J.I., Barrett, P.J. & Hannah, M.J. 2006. Vegetation and climate
from two Oligocene glacioeustatic sedimentary cycles (31 and 24 Ma) cored by the
Cape Roberts Project, Victoria Land Basin, Antarctica. Palaeogeography,
Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 231: 41-57.
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Cook, R.A., Crouch, E.M., Raine, J.I., Strong, C.P., Uruski, C.I. & Wilson, G.J. 2006.
Initial review of the biostratigraphy and petroleum systems around the Tasman Sea
hydrocarbon-producing basins. APPEA Journal 46: 201-213.
Higgs, K., King, P., Sykes, R., Crouch, E., Browne, G., Chagué-Goff, C., Palmer, J.,
Raine, I. & Brathwaite, B., 2006: Mangahewa Project: A multidisciplinary study of
the mid-late Eocene succession, onshore Taranaki Basin. Phase 1: catalogue of
stratigraphy, depositional environment & petrology along a NW-SE trending
transect line. GNS Science science report 2006/18: compact disk.
Cantrill, D.J. & Raine, J.I. 2006. Wairarapaia mildenhallii gen. et sp. nov., a new
araucarian cone related to Wollemia from the Cretaceous (Albian-Cenomanian) of
New Zealand. International journal of plant science 167(6): 1259-1269.
Ashworth, A.C., Lewis, A.R., Marchant, D.R., Askin, R.A., Cantrill, D.J., Francis,
J.E., Leng, M.J., Newton, A.E., Raine, J.I., Williams, M. & Wolfe, A.P. 2007. The
Neogene biota of the Transantarctic Mountains. Extended Abstract 071 (4 p) in
A.K.Cooper & C.R. Raymond et al. (eds), Online Proceedings of the ISAES X,
USGS Open-File Report 2007-1047.
Raine, J.I. 2008. Zonate lycophyte spores from New Zealand Cretaceous to Paleogene
strata. Alcheringa 32: 99-127.
Raine, J.I., Mildenhall, D.C. & Kennedy, E.M. 2008. New Zealand fossil spores and
pollen: an illustrated catalogue. 3rd edition. GNS Science miscellaneous series 4,
http://www.gns.cri.nz/what/earthhist/fossils/spore_pollen/catalog/index.htm, 844
html pages, issued also in CD version.
Lewis, A.R., Marchant, D.R., Ashworth, A.C., Hedenas, L., Hemming, S.R., Johnson,
J.V., Leng, M.L., Machlus, M.L., Newton, A.E., Raine, J.I., Willenbring, J.K.,
Williams, M. & Wolfe, A.P. 2008. Mid-Miocene cooling and the extinction of
tundra in continental Antarctica. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
105(31): 10676-10680.
Browne, G.H., Kennedy, E.M., Pollock, R.M., Raine, J.I., Crouch, E.M. & Sykes, R.
2008. An outcrop-based study of the economically significant Late Cretaceous
Rakopi Formation, Northwest Nelson, Taranaki Basin, New Zealand. New Zealand
Journal of Geology and Geophysics 51: 295-315.
Hollis, C.J., Raine, J.I., Crouch, E.M., Strong, C.P., Morgans, H.E.G. & Kennedy,
E.M. 2009. Field Trip 1: Cretaceous-Paleogene stratigraphy of the northern South
Island. Pages 1-69 in: C. P. Strong & C. J. Hollis (eds) Climatic and Biotic Events
of the Paleogene conference, Wellington, New Zealand, January 12th-15th, 2009,
Conference Field Trip Guides. GNS Science Miscellaneous Series 17.
Mortimer, N., Raine J.I. & Cook R.A. 2009. Correlation of basement rocks from
Waka Nui-1 and Awhitu-1, and the Jurassic regional geology of Zealandia. New
Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics 52: 1-10.
Warny, S, Askin, R., Hannah, M., Mohr, B., Raine, J.I., Harwood, D.M., Florindo, F.
& SMS Science Team 2009. Palynomorphs from a sediment core reveal a sudden
remarkably warm Antarctica during the middle Miocene. Geology 37: 955-958.
Crouch, E.M., Raine, J.I., Kennedy, E.M., Handley, L. & Pancost, R.D. 2009. New
Zealand terrestrial and marginal marine records across the Paleocene–Eocene
transition. In Crouch, E.M., Strong, C.P., Hollis, C.J. (eds) Climatic and Biotic
Events of the Paleogene (CBEP 2009), extended abstracts from an international
conference in Wellington, New Zealand, 12-15 January 2009. GNS Science
Miscellaneous Series 18: 40-43.
Raine, J.I., Kennedy, E.M. & Crouch, E.M. 2009. New Zealand Paleogene vegetation
and climate. In Crouch, E.M., Strong, C.P., Hollis, C.J. (eds) Climatic and Biotic
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Events of the Paleogene (CBEP 2009), extended abstracts from an international
conference in Wellington, New Zealand, 12-15 January 2009. GNS Science
Miscellaneous Series 18: 117-122.
Beu, A.G. & Raine, J.I. 2009. Revised descriptions of New Zealand Cenozoic
Mollusca from Beu and Maxwell (1990). GNS Science Miscellaneous Series no.
27. CD publication.[Also available online at
http://www.gns.cri.nz/paleontology/Mollusca/index.html]
Higgs, K., King, P., Sykes, R., Crouch, E., Browne, G., Raine, I., Strogen, D. &
Brathwaite R. 2009 [2010]. Middle to Late Eocene Stratigraphy, Taranaki Basin,
New Zealand. Phase 2: a catalogue integrating biostratigraphy, sedimentology,
geochemistry & log data over the NW-SE trending reservoir fairway. GNS Science
Report 2009/30.
Taviani, M., Hannah, M., Harwood, D.M., Ishman, S.E., Johnson, K., Olney, M.,
Riesselman, C., Tuzzi, E., Askin, R., Beu, A.G., Blair, S., Cantarelli, V., Ceregato,
A., Corrado, S., Mohr, B., Nielsen, S.H.H., Persico, D., Petrushak, S., Raine, J.I.,
Warny, S. & the ANDRILL-SMS Science Team 2008-2009 [2010].
Palaeontological characterization and analysis of the AND-2A Core, ANDRILL
Southern McMurdo Sound Project Antarctica. In: Harwood, D.M., Florindo, F.,
Talarico, F., and Levy, R.H., (editors), Studies from the ANDRILL, Southern
McMurdo Sound Project, Antarctica. Terra Antarctica 15(1): 113-146.
Vajda V. & Raine, J.I. 2010. A palynological investigation of plesiosaur-bearing
rocks from the Upper Cretaceous Tahora Formation, Mangahouanga, New
Zealand. Alcheringa 34: 359-374.
Hollis, C.J., Beu, A.G., Crampton, J.S., Crundwell, M.P., Morgans, H.E.G., Raine,
J.I., Jones, C.M. & Boyes, A.F. 2010. Calibration of the New Zealand CretaceousCenozoic Timescale to GTS2004. GNS Science report 2010/43. 19p
Lee D.E., Bannister J.M., Raine J.I. & Conran J.G. 2010. Euphorbiaceae:
Acalyphoideae fossils from early Miocene New Zealand: Mallotus–Macaranga
leaves, fruits, and inflorescence with in situ Nyssapollenites endobalteus pollen.
Review of paleobotany and palynology 163: 127-138.
Wanntorp, L., Vajda, V. & Raine, J.I. 2011. Past diversity of Proteaceae on
Subantarctic Campbell Island, a remote outpost of Gondwana. Cretaceous
Research 32: 357-367.
Dallas Mildenhall. D.mildenhall@gns.cri.nz Dallas has continued to work on
forensic applications of palynology, using palynology as a tool in attempting to find
the truth of what happened in a number of murder cases in New Zealand and in
Europe. He is currently editing a section on “Quaternary Forensic Proxies” for the
forthcoming 2nd edition of the Encyclopedia of Quaternary Science being produced by
Elsevier and has undertaken further work on sourcing and identifying counterfeit
pharmaceuticals. With New Zealand honey being the subject of intense scrutiny both
in New Zealand and overseas his research and servicing work in melissopalynology
has increased tremendous over the last year, greatly assisted by a newly arrived
palynologist, Xun Li. Servicing of petroleum and coal seam gas drill holes continues
with emphasis on Paleogene-Neogene biostratigraphy. His major current research
focus is on the palynology, biostratigraphy and palaeoenvironmental analysis of
sediments associated with the New Zealand Oligocene land crisis. This was a time
when the New Zealand continent was either completely submerged or reduced to a
series of islands much smaller than exist today. Current analysis of samples suggests
that at this time (c. 28-23 Ma) or immediately after the crisis floral diversity was at
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least 3 times current diversity and no adverse effects have been located that would
suggest complete inundation.
Publications:
Conran, J.G., Kaulfuss, U., Bannister, J.M., Mildenhall, D.C. & Lee, D.E. 2010.
Davallia (Polypodiales: Davalliaceae) macrofossils from Early Miocene Otago
(New Zealand) with in situ spores. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 162,
84-94.
Ferguson, D.K., Lee, D.E., Bannister, J.M., Zetter, R., Jordan, G.J., Vavra, N. &
Mildenhall, D.C. 2010. The taphonomy of a remarkable leaf bed assemblage
from the Late Oligocene-Early Miocene Gore Lignite Measures, southern New
Zealand. International Journal of Coal Geology 83, 173-181.
Songtham, W. & Mildenhall, D.C. 2010. Summary review of paleobotanical research
in Thailand. Pp. 19-22 in: Somana, R., Udchachon, M., Lauprasert, K., Lutat, P.
& Thassanapak, H. (eds). Programme and abstracts. The 2nd International
Conference on Paleontology of Southeast Asia (ICPSEA 2010), 1-5 November,
2010, Mahasarakham University, Thailand.
Phuphumirat, W., Gleason, F.H., Phongpaichit, S. & Mildenhall, D.C. 2011. The
infection of pollen by zoosporic fungi in tropical soils and its impact on pollen
preservation: a preliminary study. Nova Hedwigia 92, 233-244.
Carpenter, R.J., Jordan, G.J., Mildenhall, D.C. & Lee, D.E. 2011. Leaf fossils of the
ancient Tasmanian relict Microcachrys (Podocarpaceae) from New Zealand.
American Journal of Botany 98, 1164-1172.
Fernandez, F.M., Hostetler, D., Powell, K., Kaur, H., Green, M.D., Mildenhall, D.C.
& Newton, P.N. 2011. Poor quality drugs: grand challenges in high throughput
detection, countrywide sampling, and forensics in developing countries. Analyst
136, 3073-3082.
Jordan, G.J., Carpenter, R.J., Bannister, J.M., Lee, D.E., Mildenhall, D.C. & Hill, R.S.
2011. High conifer diversity in Oligo-Miocene New Zealand. Australian
Systematic Botany 24, 121-136.
University of Auckland
Jack Grant-Mackie (School of Environment) continues to push towards completion
of projects not aligned with his main interests of Triassic-Jurassic molluscs. It is a
slow process! In the past year more of the reports from the New Caledonian cave
excavation have been finished, with one to go. Description of a new genus and species
of Late Triassic bivalve from New Zealand and New Caledonia is nearing completion.
Other new topics have appeared and been tackled, but I see myself backing out of
serious research in the near future – has to happen eventually, and I’d rather not fall
off the perch with projects half completed. The PhD project on Mesozoic crinoids of
NZ & New Caledonia (by Mike Eagle) is drawing to a close now and should be
complete this year.
Since the above was written, I have been told that Honorary Research Fellows
like myself must remove ourselves from the university (the reason given is the
imminent rebuilding of the school, in which we appear not to be welcome!) and that
this must be done within a few weeks. No arrangement has yet been made with us for
our own research needs or for supervision of the students for whom at least three of us
have responsibilities! Thus this could be my last report and the end of my research!
Publications:
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Grant-Mackie, J.A. 2010. Commentary on Late Jurassic ammonites monograph
(Enay, 2009). Geosciences Society of New Zealand Newsletter 1: 14-18.
Meister, C., Maurizot, P., Grant-Mackie, J.A. 2010. Early Jurassic (HettangianSinemurian) ammonites from New Caledonia (French Overseas Territory, western
Pacific). Palaeontological Research 14: 85-118.
Akikuni, K., Hori, R.S., Vajda, V., Grant-Mackie, J.A., Ikehara, M. 2010.
Stratigraphy of Triassic-Jurassic boundary sequences from the Kawhia coast and
Awakino gorge, Murihiku Terrane, New Zealand. Stratigraphy 7: 7-24.
Boyer, A.G., James, S., Olson, S.L., Grant-Mackie, J.A. 2010. Long-term ecological
change in a conservation hotspot: the fossil avifauna of Mé Auré Cave, New
Caledonia. Biodiversity & Conservation 19: 3207-3224.
Grant-Mackie, J.A. 2011. A new Early Jurassic Otapiria species (Monotidae;
Bivalvia) from Murihiku rocks of the North Island of New Zealand. New Zealand
Journal of Geology & Geophysics 54: 53-67.
Grant-Mackie, J.A., Hill, J., Gill, B.J. 2011. Two Eocene chelonioid turtles from
Northland, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Geology & Geophysics 54:
181-194.
Grant-Mackie, J.A., Bloksberg, L.N. 2011. Mosasaur movements in Mangahouanga
sand? Geosciences Society of New Zealand Newsletter 4: 21-27.
Hori, R.S., Yamakita, S., Ikehara, M., Kodama, K., Aita, Y., Sakai, T., Takemura, A.,
Kamata, Y., Suzuki, N., Sporli, K.B., Grant-Mackie, J.A. 2011. Early Triassic
(Induan) Radiolaria and carbon isotope ratios of a deep sea sequence from
Waiheke Island, North Island, New Zealand. Palaeoworld 20: 166-178.
Thassanapak, H., Feng Q-L., Grant-Mackie, J.A., Chonglakmani, C., Thanee, N.
2011. Middle Triassic radiolarian faunas from Chiang Dao, northern Thailand.
Palaeoworld 20: 179-202.
MacFarlan, D.A.B., Hasibuan, F., Grant-Mackie, J.A. 2011. Mesozoic brachiopods
from the Misool Archipelago, eastern Indonesia. Memoirs of the Association of
Australasian Palaeontologists 41: 149-177.
Vajda, V., Hori, R.S., Akikuni, K., Grant-Mackie, J.A. & Ikehara, M. 2010. The
palynological signal of the Triassic-Jurassic boundary sequence of the Awakino
Gorge, New Zealand (abstract). Program & Abstracts, 8th European
Palaeobotany-Palynology Conference, 2010: 237.
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DENMARK
Natural History Museum of Denmark, University of Copenhagen
Timothy Topper recently completed his thesis in 2010 at Macquarie University and
has since received a postdoctoral position at the Natural History Museum of
Denmark, University of Copenhagen. His PhD thesis looked at early Cambrian
skeletal faunas from the Flinders Ranges in South Australia, concentrating on their
palaeobiology, biostratigraphy and biogeography. His work primarily focused on
micro- and macro- sized molluscs, protoconodonts, lobopodian sclerites, bivalved
arthropods and small shelly fossils.
In his new position, Tim is currently investigating the timelag between the
appearance of body plans during the Cambrian Explosion and diversifications during
the Great Ordovician Biodiversity Event at family, genus and species levels. In
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particular focusing on the taxonomy and distribution of brachiopods in the middle to
late Cambrian to increase our understanding of the evolution and development of
these organisms leading up to one of the most sudden and spectacular explosions of
organisms in the history of life.
Publications
Skovsted, C.B., Brock, G.A., Topper, T.P., Paterson, J.R. & Holmer, L.E. 2011.
Scleritome construction, biofacies, biostratigraphy and systematics of the
tommotiid Eccentrotheca helenia sp. nov. from the early Cambrian of South
Australia. Palaeontology 54, 253-286. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4983.2010.01031.x
Topper, T.P., Brock, G.A., Skovsted, C.B. & Paterson, J.R. 2010. Palaeoscolecid
scleritome fragments with Hadimopanella plates from the early Cambrian of
South Australia. Geological Magazine 147, 86-97.
Topper, T.P., Brock, G.A., Skovsted, C.B. & Paterson, J.R. 2011. Microdictyon plates
from the lower Cambrian Ajax Limestone of South Australia: Implications for
species taxonomy and diversity. Alcheringa 35, 427-443.
Topper, T.P., Skovsted, C.B., Brock, G.A., Paterson, J.R. 2011. The oldest bivalved
arthropods from the early Cambrian of East Gondwana: systematics and
biogeography. Gondwana Research 19, 310-326.
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SWEDEN
Swedish Museum of Natural History
Stephen McLoughlin (Department of Paleobotany) continues work on Permian and
Mesozoic seed-plants from eastern Australia, east Antarctica, and China. He
is particularly investigating the architecture and revising the systematics of leaves and
reproductive organs of Glossopteridales and Bennettitales. He is also studying
Permian-Cretaceous plant-arthropod interactions and the application of plant fossils to
biostratigraphy, paleoenvironmental analysis, and the understanding of massextinction events. Stephen is currently the editor of Alcheringa.
Publications:
Shi , G.R., Waterhouse, J.B. & Mcloughlin, S. 2010. The Lopingian of Australasia: a
review of biostratigraphy, correlations, palaeogeography and palaeobiogeography.
Geological Journal 45, 230–263.
Pott, C., McLoughlin, S. & Lindstrom, A. 2010. Late Palaeozoic foliage from China
displays affinities to Cycadales rather than to Bennettitales necessitating a
re−evaluation of the Palaeozoic Pterophyllum species. Acta Palaeontologica
Polonica 55, 157–168.
McLoughlin, S. & Kear, B.P. 2010. The Australasian Cretaceous scene. Alcheringa
34, 197–203.
McLoughlin, S., Pott, C. & Elliott, D., 2010. The Winton Formation flora (Albian–
Cenomanian, Eromanga Basin): implications for vascular plant diversification and
decline in the Australian Cretaceous. Alcheringa 34, 303–323.
McLoughlin, S. & Pott, C., 2010. Skånes Bennettitales. Geologiskt Forum 66, 21–23.
McLoughlin, S. & Pott, C., 2010. On the trail of Australia’s youngest Bennettitales.
Australian Age of Dinosaurs 8, 6–7.
McLoughlin, S., 2010. Ginkgo in Australia. Australian Age of Dinosaurs 8, 42–47.
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McLoughlin, S., 2011. New records of leaf galls and arthropod oviposition scars in
Permian–Triassic Gondwanan gymnosperms. Australian Journal of Botany 59,
156–169.
McLoughlin, S., Carpenter, R.J. & Pott, C., 2011. Ptilophyllum muelleri (Ettingsh.)
comb. nov. from the Oligocene of Australia: Last of the Bennettitales?
International Journal of Plant Sciences 172, 574–585.
Slater, B.J., McLoughlin, S. & Hilton, J. 2011. Guadalupian (Middle Permian)
megaspores from a permineralised peat in the Bainmedart Coal Measures, Prince
Charles Mountains, Antarctica. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 167,
140–155.
McLoughlin, S., Slater, B., Hilton, J. & Prevec, R., 2011. New vistas on animal–
plant–fungal interactions in the Permian–Triassic of Gondwana. GFF 133, 66–67.
(extended abstract)
Pott, C. & McLoughlin, S. 2011. The Rhaetian flora of Rögla, northern Scania,
Sweden. Palaeontology 54, 1025–1051.
McLoughlin, S. 2011. Glossopteris - insights into the architecture and relationships of
an iconic Permian Gondwanan plant. (13th Dr. J. Sen Memorial Lecture). Journal
of the Botanical Society of Bengal 65(2), 1–14.
Christian Pott (Department of Paleobotany) continues work on an enigmatic group
of extinct Mesozoic seed-plants known as Bennettitales. He is particularly
investigating the micromorphological and microanatomical features of this taxon to
better resolve the systematics of genera within the order and to clarify the
relationships of this group to other seed-plants. He is also investigating arthropod
interactions with bennettitales and the fossil record of plant defences. His work
focuses on a broad range of assemblages of Triassic to Cretaceous age from eastern
Australia, northern and central Europe, and North China. He is also studying opalized
plant remains from Lightning Ridge. He is currently the technical editor for Grana.
Publications:
McLoughlin, S., Pott, C. & Elliott, D., 2010. The Winton Formation Flora (AlbianCenomanian, Eromanga Basin): implications for vascular plant diversification and
decline in the Australian Cretaceous. Alcheringa 34, 303–323.
McLoughlin, S. & Pott, C., 2010. Skånes bennettiter. Geologiskt forum 66, 21–23.
Pott, C., Krings, M., Kerp, H. & Friis, E.M., 2010. Reconstruction of a bennettitalean
flower from the Carnian (Upper Triassic) of Lunz, Lower Austria. Review of
Palaeobotany and Palynology 159, 94–111.
Pott, C., McLoughlin, S. & Lindström, A., 2010. Late Palaeozoic foliage from China
displays affinities to Cycadales rather than to Bennettitales necessitating a reevaluation of the Palaeozoic Pterophyllum species. Acta Palaeontologica
Polonica 55, 157–168.
Bomfleur, B., Pott, C. & Kerp, H., 2011. Plant fossil assemblages of the Shafer Peak
Formation (Lower Jurassic), north Victoria Land, East Antarctica. Antarctic
Science 23, 188–208.
Kustatscher, E., Pott, C. & van Konijnenburg-van Cittert, J.H.A., 2011. A
contribution to the knowledge of the Triassic fern genus Symopteris. Review of
Palaeobotany and Palynology 165, 41–60.
McLoughlin, S., Carpenter, R. J. & Pott, C. 2011. Ptilophyllum muelleri (Ettingsh.)
comb. nov. from the Oligocene of Australia — last of the Bennettitales?
International Journal of Plant Sciences 172, 574–585.
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Moisan, P., Voigt, S., Pott, C., Buchwitz, M., Schneider, J. W. & Kerp, H., 2011.
Cycadalean and bennettitalean foliage from the Triassic Madygen Lagerstätte
(SW Kyrgyzstan, Central Asia). Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 164, 93–
108.
Pott, C. & McLoughlin, S., 2011. The Rhaeto-Liassic flora from Rögla, northern
Scania, Sweden. Palaeontology 54, 1025–1051.
Christian Skovsted (Department of Paleozoology) works on early Cambrian Small
Shelly Fossils from around the world to unravel evolutionary changes during the
Cambrian Explosion and the origination of modern phyla. Over a number of years
Christian has worked together with Dr. Glenn Brock (Macquarie University), Dr.
Timothy Topper (Copenhagen University), Prof. Lars Holmer (Uppsala University)
and PhD-student Cecilia Larsson (Uppsala University) on Lower Cambrian faunas
from the Flinders Ranges of South Australia. In particular, the focus of the research
has been the so called tommotiids, a problematic group of small Cambrian sclerites
that we have successfully demonstrated to constitute the stem group of the phylum
Brachiopoda.
Publications:
Popov, L.E., Bassett, M.G., Holmer, L.E., Skovsted, C.B. & Zuykov, M. 2010.
Earliest ontogeny of Early Palaeozoic Craniiformea: implications for brachiopod
phylogeny. Lethaia 43, 323-333. doi: 10.1111/j.1502-3931.2009.00197.x
Topper, T.P., Brock, G.A., Skovsted, C.B. & Paterson, J.R. 2010. Palaeoscolecid
scleritome fragments with Hadimopanella plates from the Early Cambrian of
South Australia. Geological Magazine 147, 86-97. doi:
10.1017/S0016756809990082
Skovsted, C.B. & Peel, J.S. 2010. Early Cambrian Brachiopods and other small shelly
fossils from the basal Kinzers Formation Of Pennsylvania. Journal of
Paleontology 84, 754-762. doi: 10.1666/09-123.1
Skovsted, C.B., Holmer, L.E., Streng, M. & Knight, I. 2010. Setatella significans, a
new name for mickwitziid stem group brachiopods from the lower Cambrian of
Greenland and Labrador. GFF 132: 117-122. doi:
10.1080/11035897.2010.490878.
Hu, S, Zhang, Z., Holmer, L.E. & Skovsted, C.B. 2010. First record of soft-part
preservation in a linguliform brachiopod from the Lower Cambrian Wulongqing
Formation (Guanshan Fauna) of Yunnan, South China. Acta Palaeontologica
Polonica 55, 495-505. doi:10.4202/app.2009.1106
Topper, T.P., Skovsted, C.B., Brock, G.A. & Paterson, J.R. 2011. The oldest bivalved
arthropods from the early Cambrian of East Gondwana; Systematics,
biostratigraphy and biogeography. Gondwana Research 19, 310-326.
doi:10.1016/j.gr.2010.05.012
Skovsted, C.B. & Peel, J.S. 2011. Hyolithellus in life position from the Lower
Cambrian of North Greenland. Journal of Paleontology 85, 37-47. doi:
10.1666/10-065.1
Holmer, L.E., Skovsted, C.B., Larsson, C.M, Brock, G.A. & Zhang, Z. 2011. First
record of a bivalved larval shell in Early Cambrian tommotiids and its
phylogenetic significance. Palaeontology 54, 235-239. doi: 10.1111/j.14754983.2010.01030.x
Skovsted, C.B., Brock, G.A., Topper, T.P., Paterson, J.R. & Holmer, L.E. 2011.
Scleritome construction, biofacies, biostratigraphy and systematics of the
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tommotiid Eccentrotheca helenia sp. nov. from the early Cambrian of South
Australia. Palaeontology 54, 253-286. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4983.2010.01031.x
Topper, T.P., Brock, G.A., Skovsted, C.B. & Paterson, J.R. 2011. Microdictyon plates
from the lower Cambrian Ajax Limestone of South Australia: Implications for
species taxonomy and diversity. Alcheringa 35, 427-443. doi:
.1080/03115518.2011.533972
Lund University
Vivi Vajda (Department of Earth and Ecosystem Sciences) is a Royal Swedish
Academy of Sciences Research Fellow supported by a grant from the Knut and Alice
Wallenberg Foundation. Vivi is undertaking multidisciplinary studies (high-resolution
palynology, sedimentology, geochemistry and geomagnetics) to resolve the timing,
rates, and causes of the K-Pg and Tr-J mass extinction events. She is particularly
investigating sections in New Zealand, eastern Australia and NW China. She is also
supervising research students investigating Silurian early land plant palynoassemblages and Late Cretaceous vertebrate assemblages of Scandinavia. She is
currently Chair of the International Geoscience Program (IGCP) and president of the
Swedish Geological Society.
Publications:
Wanntorp, L., Vajda, V. & Raine, I. 2010. Past diversity of Proteaceae on subantarctic
Campbell Island, a remote outpost of Gondwana. Cretaceous Research 32, 357–
367.
Vajda, V. & Raine, J.I., 2010. A palynological investigation of plesiosaur-bearing
rocks from the Upper Cretaceous Tahora Formation, Mangahouanga, New
Zealand. Alcheringa 34, 359–374.
Larsson, L., Vajda, V., Dykjaer, K., 2010. Vegetation and climate change in the latest
Oligocene-earliest Miocene in Jylland, Denmark. Miocene Climate change –
palynological evidence from Scandinavia. Review of Palynology and Paleobotany
159, 166–176.
Schulte, P., Alegret, L., Arenillas, I., Arz, J.A., Barton, P.J., Bown, P.R., Bralower,
T., Christeson G., Claeys, P., Cockell, C., Collins, G., Deutsch, A., Goldin, T.,
Goto, K., Grajales-Nishimura, J.M., Grieve, R., Gulick, S., Johnson, K.R.,
Kiessling, W., Koeberl, C., Kring, D.A., MacLeod K.G., Matsui, T., Melosh, J.,
Montanari, A., Morgan, J., Neal, C., Norris, R.D., Pierazzo, E., Ravizza, G.,
Rebolledo-Vieyra, M., Reimold, W-U., Robin, E., Salge, T., Speijer, R.P., Sweet,
A.R., Urrutia-Fucugauchi, J., Vajda, V., Whalen, M.T. & Willumsen, P.S. 2010.
The Chicxulub Impact and the Mass Extinction at the Cretaceous-Paleogene
Boundary. Science 327, 1214–1218.
Schulte, P., Alegret, L., Arenillas, I., Arz, J.A., Barton, P.J., Bown, P.R., Bralower,
T., Christeson G., Claeys, P., Cockell, C., Collins, G., Deutsch, A., Goldin, T.,
Goto, K., Grajales-Nishimura, J.M., Grieve, R., Gulick, S., Johnson, K.R.,
Kiessling, W., Koeberl, C., Kring, D.A., MacLeod K.G., Matsui, T., Melosh, J.,
Montanari, A., Morgan, J., Neal, C., Norris, R.D., Pierazzo, E., Ravizza, G.,
Rebolledo-Vieyra, M., Reimold, W-U., Robin, E., Salge, T., Speijer, R.P.,
Sweet, A.R., Urrutia-Fucugauchi, J., Vajda, V., Whalen, M.T., Willumsen, P.S.,
2010. Reply- The Chicxulub Impact and the Mass Extinction at the CretaceousPaleogene Boundary. Science 328, 975−
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Willumsen, P.S. & Vajda, V., 2010. A new early Paleocene dinoflagellate cyst
species, Trithyrodinium partridgei: its biostratigraphic significance and
palaeoecology. Alcheringa 34, 523−538.
Vajda, V. & Larsson, L.M., 2010. Euro-Ages and geology in Sweden. European
geologist 30, 39−40.
Ferrow, E., Vajda, V., Bender Koch, C., Peucker-Ehrenbrink, B., Suhr Willumsen &
P., 2011. Multiproxy analysis of a new terrestrial and a marine Cretaceous–
Paleogene (K–Pg) boundary site from New Zealand. Geochimica et
Cosmochimica Acta 75, 657–672
Sha, J., Vajda, V., Pan, Y., Larsson, L., Wang, Y., Cheng, X.J., Deng, S., Yao, X.,
Chen, S., Zhang, X. & Peng, B., 2011. The stratigraphy of the Triassic−Jurassic
boundary successions of the southern margin of Junggar Basin, northwestern
China. Acta Geologica Sinica 85, 421–436.
Akikuni, K., Hori, R., Vajda, V., Grant-Mackie, J.A., Ikehara, M., 2011. Stratigraphy
of Triassic-Jurassic boundary sequences from the Kawhia coast and Awakino
gorge, Murihiku Terrane, New Zealand. Stratigraphy 7, 7−24.
Uppsala University www.palaeontology.geo.uu.se
The Palaeobiology Programme at Uppsala University has a long history of research
within the Australasian region. This was greatly strengthened in 2010 by the
establishment of a Vertebrate Palaeobiology Research Group, which has several
projects specifically focused upon Australian Mesozoic and Cenozoic faunas: (1)
Cretaceous high-latitude biotas − examining climatic influences on biodiversity
change near the Cretaceous southern pole including adaptational responses, faunal
turnover and the origins of modern lineages; (2) Gondwanan Mesozoic marine
vertebrates − exploring the evolution and palaeobiogeography of marine reptiles and
fishes from the Gondwanan continents with an emphasis on exceptionally preserved
lagerstätte in Australia and assemblages in the Middle East; (3) Evolution of
Australian-New Guinean mammals − incorporating molecular data and fossils to
unravel the phylogenetic relationships and early radiation of Australasian marsupials,
together with the development of key adaptations in iconic groups such as kangaroos,
bandicoots and dasyuromorphians. ARC Linkage and the Swedish Research Council
are the primary supporters of this work.
Vertebrate Palaeobiology Research Group – Staff:
Dr Benjamin Kear (Assistant Professor) has broad research interests but mainly
focuses on Mesozoic marine tetrapods, Cretaceous and Neogene turtles, and
Australasian late Palaeogene-Neogene marsupials. Present projects include global
phylogenetic and palaeobiogeographical appraisals of plesiosaur, ichthyosaur, and sea
turtle (Chelonioidea) radiations, together with quantitative approaches to the structural
evolution of tortoises and Australasian marsupial lineages. Ben has served as an
Associate Editor for Alcheringa, and is presently also guest editing special issues for
Geological Magazine and GFF.
Dr Stephen Poropat (Postdoctoral Research Fellow) completed his PhD at Monash
University in 2011 and is now researching the phylogeny, palaeobiogeography, and
palaeoecology of Cretaceous sauropod dinosaurs from Australia. Stephen is also
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involved in geotourism outreach and is a Research Associate of the Australian Age of
Dinosaurs Museum in Winton, Queensland.
Programme-Supported Guest Researchers (2010-2011):
Emeritus Professor Michael Westerman (La Trobe University) – Evolutionary
relationships of bandicoots and dasyuromorphian marsupials.
Dr Erin Maxwell (Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart) – Triassic
marine reptile assemblages from Svalbard.
Postgraduate Students (2010-2011):
2011, PhD: Elisabeth Einarsson (based at Lund University) – Palaeoenvironment,
palaeoecology and palaeobiogeography of Upper Cretaceous marine vertebrates from
the Kristianstad Basin, Sweden.
2010, PhD: Maria Zammit (completed) – Diversity and functional morphology of
Australasian ichthyosaurs.
2011, MSc: Oskar Bremer – Osteology and CT-based functional analysis of the Late
Cretaceous crocodilian Denazinosuchus kirtlandicus (New Mexico, U.S.A.)
2011, MSc: Jenny Lindhal – Diversity and palaeobiogeography of Miocene
'Hipparion Fauna' tortoises from China.
2010, MSc: Henrik Carlsson – Historical revision of Charles Sternberg's San Juan
Basin Late Cretaceous vertebrate collections in Sweden.
2010, MSc: Roland Sookias (completed) – Comparative geotourism management
strategies for important Mesozoic vertebrate localities.
Undergraduate Research Students (2010-2011):
2011, BSc (Research component): Maria Lindkvist (completed) – Phylogenetic
revision of the Lower Jurassic pachycormiform fish Pachycormus bollensis
2010, BSc (Hons): Lucy Meehan (completed) – molecular phylogenetics of
dasyuromorphians.
2010, BSc (Hons): Jessica Ferro (completed) – Biogeographical implications of
phalangerid phylogenies.
2010, BSc (Hons): Manieka Ried (completed) – Interspecific relationships of the
vespertilionid bat Scotorepens.
Publications (5-year record covering 2006-2011):
Kear, B.P. & Barrett, P.M. 2011. Reassessment of the Lower Cretaceous (Barremian)
pliosauroid Leptocleidus superstes Andrews, 1922 and other plesiosaur remains
from the non-marine Wealden succession of southern England. Zoological Journal
of the Linnean Society 161, 663-691.
Kear, B.P. & Hamilton-Bruce, R.J. 2011. Dinosaurs in Australia. Mesozoic Life from
the Southern Continent. CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne, 190 p.
Georgalis, G. L., Velitzelos, E., Velitzelos, D. E. & Kear, B. P., in press:
Nostimochelone lampra gen. et sp. nov., an enigmatic new podocnemidoidean turtle
from the Lower Miocene of northern Greece. In Morphology and Evolution of
Turtles: Origin and Early Diversification. Part III. Pleurodire Diversity and
Biogeography (D. Brinkman, P. Holroyd, & J. Gardner Eds). Springer, Dordrecht,
The Netherlands.
Smith, E.T. & Kear, B.P., in press: Spoochelys ormondea gen. et sp. nov., an archaic
meiolaniid-like turtle from the Lower Cretaceous of Lightning Ridge, Australia. In
Morphology and Evolution of Turtles: Origin and Early Diversification. Part II.
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The Early Diversification of Turtles, (D. Brinkman, P. Holroyd, & J. Gardner Eds).
Springer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.
Westerman, M., Kear, B.P., Aplin, K., Meredith, R. & Springer, M., in press:
Phylogenetic relationships of living and recently extinct bandicoots based on
nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences: The evolution of an enigmatic
marsupial Order. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution.
Wilson, G.D.F., Patterson, J.R. & Kear, B.P. 2011. Fossil isopods associated with a
fish skeleton from the Lower Cretaceous of Australia − direct evidence of a
scavenging lifestyle in Mesozoic Cymothoida. Palaeontology 54, 1053-1068.
Zammit, M. 2011. Australasia's first Jurassic ichthyosaur fossil: an isolated vertebra
from the Lower Jurassic Arataura Formation of North Island, New Zealand.
Alcheringa 35, 341-343.
Zammit, M. & Kear, B.P., in press: Healed bite marks on a Cretaceous ichthyosaur.
Acta Palaeontologica Polonica.
Kear, B.P. & Siverson, M. 2010. First evidence of a Late Cretaceous sea turtle from
Australia. Alcheringa 34, 265-272.
Kear, B.P., Deacon, G.L. & Siverson, M. 2010. Remains of an Upper Cretaceous
pterosaur from the Molecap Greensand of Western Australia. Alcheringa 34, 273279.
Kear, B.P. & Georgalis, G.L. 2010. Colossal tortoises, climate change, and the
evolution of Europe’s largest ‘modern’ reptiles. Deposits Magazine 21, 8-10.
Kear, B.P., Rich, T.H., Ali, M.A., Al-Mufarrih, Y.A., Matiri, A.H., Masary, A.M. &
Halawani, M.A., 2010. First Triassic lungfish from the Arabian Peninsula. Journal
of Paleontology 84, 137-140.
Kear, B.P., Rich, T.H., Ali, M.A., Al-Mufarrih, Y.A., Matiri, A.H., Masary, A.M. &
Halawani, M.A. 2010. A review of aquatic vertebrate remains from the MiddleUpper Triassic Jilh Formation of Saudi Arabia. Proceedings of the Royal Society of
Victoria 122, 1-8.
Barrett, P.M., Kear, B.P. & Benson, R.B.J. 2010. Opalised archosaur remains from
the Lower Cretaceous of South Australia. Alcheringa 34, 293-301.
Barrett, P.M., Rich, T.H., Vickers-Rich, P., Tumanova, T.A., Pickering, D., Kool, L.
& Kear, B.P. 2010. Ankylosaurian dinosaur material from the Early Cretaceous of
south-eastern Australia. Alcheringa 34, 205-217.
Einarsson, E., Lindgren, J., Kear, B.P. & Siverson, M. 2010. Mosasaur bite marks on
a plesiosaur propodial from the Campanian (Late Cretaceous) of southern Sweden.
GFF 132, 123-138.
Hamilton-Bruce, R.J. & Kear, B.P. 2010. A possible succineid land snail from Lower
Cretaceous non-marine deposits of the Griman Creek Formation at Lightning Ridge,
New South Wales. Alcheringa 34, 325-331.
Kellner, A.W.A., Rich, T.H., Costa, F.R., Vickers-Rich, P., Kear, B.P., Waters, M. &
Kool, L. 2010. New isolated pterodactyloid bones from the Albian Toolebuc
Formation (Western Queensland, Australia) with comments on the Australian
pterosaur fauna. Alcheringa 34, 219-230.
Maxwell, E.E. & Kear, B.P. 2010. Postcranial anatomy of Platypterygius americanus
(Reptilia: Ichthyosauria) from the Cretaceous of Wyoming. Journal of Vertebrate
Paleontology 30, 1059-1068.
McLoughlin, S. & Kear, B.P. 2010. The Australasian Cretaceous scene. Alcheringa
34, 197-203.
Zammit, M. 2010. A review of Australasian ichthyosaurs. Alcheringa 34, 381-292.
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Zammit, M., Norris, R. & Kear, B.P. 2010. The Australian Cretaceous ichthyosaur
Platypterygius australis: a description and review of postcranial remains. Journal of
Vertebrate Paleontology 30, 1726-1735.
Kear, B.P. 2009. Proterosuchid archosaur remains from the Early Triassic Bulgo
Sandstone of Long Reef, New South Wales. Alcheringa 33, 331-337.
Kear, B.P. 2009. Opalized sea monsters and ancient polar oceans. Pp. 23-29. In Fossil
Hunters, (J.G. Gehling, B.P. Kear, S. Miller, N.S. Pledge, E. Reed & R.T. Wells).
South Australian Museum, Adelaide, 64 p.
Kear, B.P. 2009. Beast or bait fish? Australian Age of Dinosaurs 7, 6.
Kear, B.P., Milner, A.R. & Barrett, P.M. 2009. Plesiosaurs from the JurassicCretaceous Purbeck Limestone Group of southern England. Proceedings of the
Geologists’ Association 120, 121-125.
Kear, B.P., Rich, T.H., Ali, M.A., Al-Mufarrih, Y.A., Matiri, A.H., Masary, A.M. &
Yousry, A. 2009. An Upper Cretaceous (Campanian-Maastrichtian) actinopterygian
fish assemblage from the marginal marine Adaffa Formation of Saudi Arabia.
Cretaceous Research 30, 1164-1168.
Gehling, J.G., Kear, B.P., Miller, S., Pledge, N.S., Reed, E. & Wells, R.T. 2009.
Fossil Hunters. South Australian Museum, Adelaide, 64 p.
Rich, T.H., Vickers-Rich, P., Flannery, T.F., Kear, B.P., Cantrill, D., Komarower, P.,
Kool, L., Pickering, D., Trusler, P., van Klaveren, N. & Fitzgerald. E.M.G. 2009.
An Australian multituberculate and its palaeobiogeographical implications. Acta
Palaeontologica Polonica 54, 1-6.
Kear, B.P. 2008. Review of: Evolution and Biogeography of Australasian
Vertebrates. John R. Merrick, Michael Archer, Georgina M. Hickey and Michael, S.
Y. Lee (2006). Palaeontological Association Newsletter 68, 117-120.
Kear, B.P. 2008. From sea to sand – ancient marine reptiles from the deserts of Saudi
Arabia. Deposits Magazine 16, 8-11.
Kear, B.P. & Godthelp, H. 2008. Inferred vertebrate bite marks on an Early
Cretaceous unionoid bivalve from Lightning Ridge, Australia. Alcheringa 32, 6571.
Kear, B.P. & Pledge, N.S. 2008. A new fossil kangaroo from the Oligocene-Miocene
Etadunna Formation of Ngama Quarry, Lake Palankarinna, South Australia.
Australian Journal of Zoology 55, 331-339.
Kear, B.P., Lee, M.S.Y., Gerdtz, W.R. & Flannery, T.F. 2008. The evolution of hind
limb proportions in kangaroos (Marsupialia: Macropodoidea). Pp. 25-35. In
Mammalian Evolutionary Morphology: A Tribute to Frederick S. Szalay, (E.J.
Sargis & M. Dagosto Eds). Springer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 400 p.
Kear, B.P., Rich, T.H., Ali, M.A., Al-Mufarrih, Y.A., Matiri, A.H., Masary, A.M. &
Yousry, A. 2008. Late Cretaceous (Campanian-Maastrichtian) marine reptiles from
the Adaffa Formation, NW Saudi Arabia. Geological Magazine 145, 648-654.
Zammit, M., Daniels, C.B. & Kear, B.P. 2008. Elasmosaur neck flexibility:
implications for hunting strategies. Comparative Physiology and Biochemistry A
150, 124-130.
Kear, B.P. 2007. First record of a pachycormid fish (Actinopterygii:
Pachycormiformes) from the Early Cretaceous of Australia. Journal of Vertebrate
Paleontology 27, 1033-1038.
Kear, B.P. 2007. A juvenile pliosauroid plesiosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of
South Australia. Journal of Paleontology 81, 154-162.
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Kear, B.P. 2007. Taxonomic clarification of the Australian elasmosaurid
Eromangasaurus, with reference to other austral elasmosaur taxa. Journal of
Vertebrate Paleontology 27, 241-246.
Kear, B.P. 2007. A plesiosaur ‘missing link’ from South Australia. Australian Age of
Dinosaurs 5, 10.
Kear, B.P., Cooke, B.N., Archer, M. & Flannery, T.F. 2007. Implications of a new
species of the Oligo-Miocene kangaroo (Marsupialia: Macropodoidea) Nambaroo,
from the Riversleigh World Heritage Area, Queensland, Australia. Journal of
Paleontology 81, 1147-1167.
Archer, M., Arena, D.A., Bassarova, M., Beck, R., Black, K., Boles, W.E., Brewer,
P., Cooke, B.N., Crosby, K., Gillespie, A., Godthelp, H., Hand, S.J., Holt, T., Kear,
B., Louys, J., Morrell, A., Muirhead, J., Roberts, K.K., Scanlon, J.D., Travouillon,
K.T. & Wroe, S. 2007. Current status of species-level representation in faunas from
selected fossil localities in the Riversleigh World Heritage Area, northwestern
Queensland. Alcheringa Special Issue 1, 1-17.
Rich, T.H., Kear, B.P., Halawani, M.A., Ali, M.A., Al-Mufarrih, Y.A., Matiri, A.H. &
Masary, A.M. 2007. Preliminary report on a vertebrate palaeontological
investigation of the Middle Triassic Jilh Formation, central Saudi Arabia. Saudi
Geological Survey Open-File Report SGS-OF-2007-2, 18 p.
Kear, B.P. 2006. First gut contents in a Cretaceous sea turtle. Biology Letters 2, 113115.
Kear, B.P. 2006. Reassessment of Cratochelone berneyi Longman, 1915, a giant
Early Cretaceous sea turtle from Australia. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 26,
779-783.
Kear, B.P. 2006. Marine reptiles from the Lower Cretaceous of South Australia:
elements of a high-latitude cold water assemblage. Palaeontology 49, 837-856.
Kear, B.P. 2006. Plesiosaur remains from Cretaceous high-latitude non-marine
deposits in southeastern Australia. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 26, 196-199.
Kear, B.P. 2006. Review of: Tasmanian Tiger by David Owen. Journal of
Mammalian Evolution 13, 151-152.
Kear, B.P. & Lee. M.S.Y. 2006. A primitive protostegid from Australia and early sea
turtle evolution. Biology Letters 2, 116-119.
Kear, B.P., Schroeder, N.I., & Lee, M.S.Y. 2006. An archaic crested plesiosaur in
opal from the Lower Cretaceous high latitude deposits of Australia. Biology Letters
2, 615-619.
Kear, B.P., Schroeder, N.I., Vickers-Rich, P. & Rich, T.H. 2006. Early Cretaceous
high latitude marine reptile assemblages from southern Australia. Paludicola 5,
200-205.
Hamilton-Bruce, R.J. & Kear, B.P. 2006. A new fossil non-marine snail (Gastropoda)
from the Lower Cretaceous (Albian, Griman Creek Formation) of eastern Australia.
Molluscan Research 26: 84-88.
Helgen, K.M., Wells, R.T., Kear, B.P., Gerdtz, W.R. & Flannery, T.F. 2006.
Ecological and evolutionary significance of sizes of giant extinct kangaroos.
Australian Journal of Zoology 54, 293-303.
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UNITED KINGDOM
University of Birmingham
Ben Slater (School of Geography, Earth & Environmental Science) is mid-way
through a PhD project on the Middle Permian permineralized plants of the
Bainmedart Coal Measures, Prince Charles Mountains, Australian Antarctic Territory.
He is investigating some of the more cryptic elements in the Glossopteris flora from
the Lambert Graben including a range of megaspores, lycophyte axes, and arthropod
and fungal body and trace fossils associated with glossopterid stems and roots. These
studies will help fill in some of the blanks with respect to understanding the
associations of organs and organisms in the high-latitude forests of the Permian. His
project is supervised by Jason Hilton (University of Birmingham) and Stephen
McLoughlin (Swedish Museum of Natural History).
Publications:
Slater, B.J., McLoughlin, S. & Hilton, J. 2011. Guadalupian (Middle Permian)
megaspores from a permineralised peat in the Bainmedart Coal Measures, Prince
Charles Mountains, Antarctica. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 167,
140–155.
McLoughlin, S., Slater, B., Hilton, J. & Prevec, R., 2011. New vistas on animal–
plant–fungal interactions in the Permian–Triassic of Gondwana. GFF 133, 66–67.
(extended abstract)
The Natural History Museum, London
Greg Edgecombe continues work on the higher-level phylogenetics of arthropods,
Palaeozoic Arthropoda known from soft-part preservation, and the evolution of
centipedes.
The Cambrian research group at the NHM has a focus on resolving the
sequence of branching and character evolution in the arthropod stem-group. Xiaoya
Ma is an expert in Cambrian lobopodians, with a three-year post-doc investigating
sensory structures in Chengjiang and Burgess Shale moulting animals (Ecdysozoa) and
neuroanatomy of extant ecdysozoans. Allison Daley is a Swedish Research Council
post-doc from 2011-2013, working on the systematics, ontogeny and morphometrics of
anomalocaridids, especially from the Burgess Shale. David Legg’s PhD project at
Imperial College incorporates fossil diversity into a morphological dataset for arthropod
cladistics, as well as describing new Palaeozoic arthropods from the Burgess Shale and
Herefordshire Silurian Lagerstätten.
Research on Australian palaeontology concentrates on the Emu Bay Shale
Konservat-Lagerstätte (Cambrian Stage 4) on Kangaroo Island. Publications based on
discoveries from excavations at Buck Quarry since 2007 have documented new
arthropods, including well-preserved compound eyes, the first Australian leanchoiliid,
and a new group of nektaspids (“trilobitomorphs”). Current work on the Emu Bay
Shale includes a description of the palaeoscolecids, a vetulicolian, the eyes of
Anomalocaris, and several more new arthropods.
Research on centipede systematics concentrates on higher-level phylogeny using
morphology and molecular sequence data, the systematics of Australian
Scutigeromorpha, new phylogenetic characters for the Scolopendromorpha, and
73
centipedes from various amber deposits. Projects and publications are on my website:
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/research-curation/projects/evolution-centipedes/index.html
Publications
Campbell, L.I., Rota-Stabelli, O., Edgecombe, G.D., Marchioro, T., Longhorn, S.J.,
Philippe, H., Telford, M.J., Rebecchi, L., Peterson, K.J. & Pisani, D. 2011.
MicroRNAs and phylogenomics resolve the phylogenetic relationships of the
Tardigrada, and suggest the velvet worms as the sister group of Arthropoda.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA)
10.1073/pnas.1105499108.
Edgecombe, G.D. 2011. Chilopoda – The fossil history, p. 355-361. In: Minelli, A.
(ed.), Treatise on Zoology – The Myriapoda, Volume 1. Brill, Leiden.
Edgecombe, G.D., García-Bellido, D.C. & Paterson, J.R. 2011. A new leanchoiliid
megacheiran arthropod from the lower Cambrian Emu Bay Shale, South Australia.
Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 56, 373-388.
Edgecombe, G.D., Giribet, G., Dunn, C.W., Hejnol, A., Kristensen, R.M., Neves,
R.C., Rouse, G.W., Worsaae, K. and Sørensen, M.V. 2011. Higher-level metazoan
relationships: recent progress and remaining questions. Organisms, Diversity &
Evolution 11, 151-172.
Garwood, R.J. & Edgecombe, G.D. 2011. Early terrestrial animals, evolution and
uncertainty. Evolution: Education and Outreach 4, 489-501.
Gehling, J.G., Jago, J.B., Paterson, J.R., García-Bellido, D.C. & Edgecombe, G.D.
2011. The geological context of the lower Cambrian (Series 2) Emu Bay Shale
Lagerstätte and adjacent stratigraphic units, Kangaroo Island, South Australia.
Australian Journal of Earth Sciences 58, 243-257.
Lee, M.S.Y., Jago, J.G., García-Bellido, D.C., Edgecombe, G.D., Gehling, J.G. &
Paterson, J.R. 2011. Modern optics in exceptionally preserved eyes of Early
Cambrian arthropods from Australia. Nature 474, 631-634.
Rota-Stabelli, O., Campbell, L., Brinkmann, H., Edgecombe, G.D., Longhorn, S.J.,
Peterson, K.J., Pisani, D., Philippe, H. & Telford, M.J. 2011. A congruent solution
to arthropod phylogeny: phylogenomics, microRNAs and morphology support
monophyletic Mandibulata. Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series B (Biological
Sciences) 278, 298-306.
Edgecombe, G.D. 2010. Arthropod phylogeny: an overview from the perspectives of
morphology, molecular data and the fossil record. Arthropod Structure &
Development 39, 74-87.
Edgecombe, G.D. 2010. Palaeomorphology: fossils and the inference of cladistic
relationships. Acta Zoologica 91, 72-80.
Murienne, J., Edgecombe, G.D. & Giribet, G. 2010. Including secondary structure,
fossils and molecular dating in the centipede tree of life. Molecular Phylogenetics
and Evolution 57, 301-313.
Paterson, J.R., Edgecombe, G.D., García-Bellido, D.C., Jago, J.B. & Gehling, J.G.
2010. Nektaspid arthropods from the Lower Cambrian Emu Bay Shale
Lagerstätte, South Australia, with a reassessment of lamellipedian relationships.
Palaeontology 53, 377-402.
Shear, W.A. & Edgecombe, G.D. 2010. The geological record and phylogeny of the
Myriapoda. Arthropod Structure & Development 39, 174-190.
Daley, A.C., Budd, G.E., Caron, J.-B., Edgecombe, G.D. & Collins, D. 2009. The
Burgess Shale anomalocaridid Hurdia and its significance for early euarthropod
evolution. Science 323, 1597-1600.
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Edgecombe, G.D. 2009. Palaeontological and molecular evidence linking arthropods,
onychophorans and other Ecdysozoa. Evolution: Education and Outreach 2, 178190.
Edgecombe, G.D., Minelli, A. & Bonato, L. 2009. A geophilomorph centipede
(Chilopoda) from La Buzinie amber (Late Cretaceous: Cenomanian), SW France.
Geodiversitas 31, 29-39.
García-Bellido D.C., Paterson, J.R., Edgecombe, G.D., Jago, J.B., Gehling, J.G. &
Lee, M.S.Y. 2009. The bivalved arthropods Isoxys and Tuzoia with soft-part
preservation from the lower Cambrian Emu Bay Shale Lagerstätte (Kangaroo
Island, Australia). Palaeontology 52, 1121-1141.
Giribet, G., Dunn, C.W., Edgecombe, G.D., Hejnol, A., Martindale, M.Q. & Rouse,
G.W. 2009. Assembling the spiralian Tree of Life, p. 52-64. In: Telford, M.J. &
Littlewood, D.T.J. (eds.), Animal evolution: genomes, fossils and trees. Oxford
University Press, Oxford.
Hejnol, A., Obst, M., Stamatakis, A., Ott, M., Rouse, G.W., Edgecombe, G.D.,
Martinez, P., Baguñà, J., Bailly, X., Jondelius, U., Wiens, M., Müller, W.E.G.,
Seaver, E., Wheeler, W.C., Martindale, M.Q., Giribet, G. & Dunn, C.W. 2009.
Assessing the root of bilaterian animals with scalable phylogenomic methods.
Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series B (Biological Sciences) 276, 4261-4270.
Dunn, C.W., Hejnol, A., Matus, D.Q., Pang, K., Browne, W.E., Smith, S.A., Seaver,
E., Rouse, G.W., Obst, M., Edgecombe, G.D., Sørensen, M.V., Haddock, S.H.D.,
Schmidt-Rhaesa, A., Okusu, A., Kristensen, R., Wheeler, W.C., Martindale, M.Q.
& Giribet, G. 2008. Broad phylogenomic sampling improves resolution of the
Animal Tree of Life. Nature 452, 745-749.
Edgecombe, G.D. 2008. Anatomical nomenclature: homology, standardization and
datasets. Zootaxa 1950, 87-95.
Paterson, J.R., Jago, J.B., Gehling, J.G., García-Bellido Capdevila, D., Edgecombe,
G.D. & Lee, M.S.Y. 2008. Early Cambrian arthropods from the Emu Bay Shale
Lagerstätte, South Australia. In: Rábano, I., Gozalo, R. and García-Bellido, D.
(eds.), Advances in Trilobite Research. Cuadernos del Museo Geominero 9, 319325.
Edgecombe, G.D. & Webby, B.D. 2007. Ordovician trilobites with eastern Gondwanan
affinities from central-west New South Wales and Tasmania. Memoirs of the
Association of Australasian Palaeontologists 34, 255-281.
Giribet, G., Dunn, C.W., Edgecombe, G.D. & Rouse, G.W. 2007. A modern look at
the Animal Tree of Life. Zootaxa 1668, 61-79.
*********************************************************************
UNITED STATES
University of Oregon
Greg Retallack has been wrapping up a variety of Paleozoic paleosol projects, but
continues with studies of Ediacaran paleosols from South Australia, Boston and
Newfoundland, and Archean paleosols from the Pilbara region of Western Australia.
New views of Devonian tetrapod and tree evolution were published in 2011. Other
Paleozoic projects in progress include reassessments of the Devonian tree lichen
Prototaxites from New York, and the Silurian problematicum Rutgersella from
Pennsylvania. Ediacaran and Archean paleosol studies are mainly aimed at
75
understanding paleoclimate and paleoenvironments on land, but also are revealing
surprising evidence of life on land.
As director of the Condon Collection of fossils at the University of Oregon,
Greg has been updating the computer catalog for publication online in the near future.
This important collection includes materials going back to nineteenth century
pioneering paleontologist Thomas Condon, and about 50 holotypes and published
specimens, largely from Oregon. Fund raising has recently enabled significant
expansion of geological-paleontological exhibits. Still needed is $6 million for storage
and research laboratories.
Publications:
Huang, C.-M., Retallack, G.J., & Wang, C.S. 2010. Cretaceous calcareous paleosols:
pedogenetic characteristics and paleoenvironmental implications. Acta Pedologica
Sinica 47, 1029-1038 (in Chinese).
Metzger, C.A. & Retallack, G.J. 2010. Middle Miocene climate change in the
Australian outback. Australian Journal of Earth Sciences 57, 871-885.
Retallack, G.J. 2010a. Lateritization and bauxitization events. Economic Geology 105,
655-667.
Retallack, G.J. 2010c. First evidence for locomotion in the Ediacara biota from the
565 Ma Mistaken Point Formation, Newfoundland: comment. Geology 38. e223.
Retallack, G.J. & Huang, C.-M. 2010. Depth to gypsic horizon as a proxy for
paleoprecipitation in paleosols of sedimentary environments. Geology 38, 403406.
Retallack, G.J. 2011a. Neoproterozoic glacial loess and limits to snowball Earth.
Geological Society of London Journal 168, 1-19.
Retallack, G.J. 2011b. Woodland hypothesis for Devonian evolution of tetrapods.
Journal of Geology 119, 235-258.
Retallack, G.J. 2011c. Exceptional fossil preservation during CO2 greenhouse crises?
Palaeogeography Palaeclimatology Paleoecology 307, 59-74.
Retallack, G.K., Sheldon, N.D., Carr, P.F., Fanning, M., Thompson, C.A., Williams,
M.L., Jones, B.G. & Hutton, A. 2011. Multiple Early Triassic greenhouse crises
impeded recovery from Late Permian mass extinction. Palaeogeography
Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology 308, 233-251.
Retallack G.J. & Huang, C.-M. 2011. Ecology and evolution of Devonian trees in
New York, USA. Palaeogeography, Paleoclimatology, Paleoecology 299, 110128.
Los Angeles Basin, California
Mary L. Droser (University of California, Riverside) is working with Jim Gehling
(South Australian Museum) on the paleoecology, taphonomy and distribution of the
Ediacara Biota.
Publications:
Droser, M.L. & Gehling, J. 2008. Synchronous aggregate growth in an abundant new
Ediacaran tubular organism. Science 319, 1660-1662.
Gehling, J.G. & Droser, M.L. 2009. Textured organic surfaces associated with the
Ediacara Biota in South Australia. Earth-Science Reviews 96, 196-206.
Tarhan, L., Droser, M. & Gehling, J. 2010. Taphonomic controls on Ediacaran
diversity: Uncovering the holdfast origin of morphologically variable enigmatic
structures. Palaios 25, 823-830.
76
Sappenfield, A., Droser, M. & Gehling, J. 2011. Problematica, trace fossils, and tubes
within the Ediacara Member (South Australia): Redefining the Ediacaran trace
fossil record one tube at a time. Journal of Paleontology 85, 256-265.
Bill Schopf (UCLA) was a Visiting Professor at the University of New South Wales
from mid-May through late July. Sponsored by the UNSW Australian Centre for
Astrobiology, he participated in the Centre’s symposium on the timing and nature of
the origin of oxygenic photosynthesis; presented lectures at UNSW, Macquarie
University and (in August) the South Australian Museum; and carried out field work
in Western Australia and laboratory research at UNSW.
Publications:
Schopf, J. W. & Kudryavtsev, A. B. 2010. A renaissance in studies of ancient life.
Geology Today 26: 140-145.
Schopf, J.W., Kudryavtsev, A.B., Sugitani, K. & Walter, M.R. 2010. Precambrian
microbe-like pseudofossils: a promising solution to the problem. Precambrian
Research 179, 191-205.
Moczydłowska, M., Schopf, J.W. & Willman, S. 2010. Micro- and nano-scale
ultrastructure of cell walls in Cryogenian microfossils: revealing their biological
affinity. Lethaia 43, 129-136.
Narbonne, G.M., Schopf, J.W., & Walter, M.R. 2010. Hans J. Hofmann (19362010). Geology 39, 13-14.
Bruce Runnegar (UCLA) is working with Linda Ivany and Andrew Bush (Syracuse
University) as well as Dan Petrizzo and Ed Young (UCLA) on using the
sclerochronology of Eurydesma shells to test hypotheses about palaeotemperatures
and ocean water oxygen isotopic compositions during the Late Palaeozoic Ice Age
(LPIA). Dan has recently developed clumped isotope palaeothermometry in Ed
Young’s lab to allow comparisons with conventional oxygen isotope profiles obtained
from shells. Bruce also continues a long-term collaboration with Jim Gehling (South
Australian Museum) on the latest Cryogenian and Ediacaran of the Flinders Ranges.
Publications:
Ivany, L.C. & Runnegar, B. 2010. Early Permian seasonality from bivalve δ18O and
implications for the oxygen isotopic composition of seawater. Geology 38, 10271030.
Kouchinsky, A., Bengtson, S., Runnegar, B., Skovsted, C., Steiner, M. & Vendrasco,
M. 2011. Chronology of Cambrian biomineralisation. Geological Magazine
(published online, July 2011).
Saltzman, M.R., Young, S.A., Kump, L.R., Gill, B., Lyons, T.W. & Runnegar, B.
2011. Pulse of atmospheric oxygen during the Late Cambrian. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences 108, 3876-3881.
John Long (Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County) continues his research
on Gogo fish and other Devonian fish materials between his busy admin duties. He
has been working closely with Australian colleagues Kate Trinajstic, Gavin Young
and Tim Senden completing a MS on Gogo ptyctodontids for JVP. He is also
finishing up a major MS on the origins of air breathing in Devonian fish and tetrapods
to be submitted late in 2011. On September 18th, Channel 9’s Sixty Minutes featured
his Gogo research work, and a video of this interview can be downloaded from their
website. John has completed two new books recently—one on the origins of sex
(Hung Like an Argentine Duck, HarperCollins)—and one with Jeff Stilwell of
77
Monash University on the palaeontology of Antarctica (Frozen in Time. The
Prehistory of Antarctica, CSIRO Press). The Natural History Museum’s new
Dinosaur Hall, which opened this July, continues to attract record crowds, so please
come and visit us if you are passing though Los Angeles.
Publications:
Long, J.A. 2010. The Rise of Fishes. 500 Million Years of Evolution. Johns Hopkins
University Press, Baltimore (2nd ed.).
Young, G.C., Burrow, C.J., Long, J.A., Turner, S. & Choo, B. 2010. Devonian
macrovertebrate assemblages and biogeography of East Gondwana (Australia,
Antarctica). Palaeoworld 19, 55-74.
Clement, A. & Long, J.A. 2010. Air-breathing adaptation in a marine Devonian
lungfish. Biology Letters 6, 509-512.
Holland, T., Long, J.A. & Snitting, D. 2010. New information on the enigmatic
tetrapodomorph fish Marsdenichthys longioccipitus (Long, 1985). Journal of
Vertebrate Paleontology 30, 68-77.
Clement, A. & Long, J.A. 2010. Xeradipterus gen. nov., a new holodontid lungfish
from the Late Devonian Gogo Formation, Western Australia. Journal of
Vertebrate Paleontology 30, 681-695.
Long, J.A. & Trinajstic, K. 2010. The Late Devonian Gogo Formation Lagerstatte –
Exceptional preservation and Diversity in early Vertrebrates. Annual Reviews of
Earth and Planetary Sciences 38, 665-680.
Long ,J.A., Hall, B.K., McNamara, K.J. & Smith, M.M. 2010. The phylogenetic
origin of jaws in vertebrates: Developmental plasticity and heterochrony.
Kirtlandia 57, 43-50.
Long, J. 2010. Once Upon an Ancient Reef. Science 329, 35-36.
Stilwell, J. & Long, J.A. 2011. Frozen in Time. Prehistoric life of Antarctica. CSIRO
Press, Collingwood, 248 pp.
Long, J.A. 2011. Hung Like an Argentine Duck. A Journey to the Origins of Intimacy.
HarperCollins, 278 pp. Also titled Origins of Intimacy, University of Chicago
Press.
Long, J.A. 2011. The Dawn of the Deed. Scientific American January 2011, 34-39.
78
CONTACT DETAILS FOR CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS ISSUE
Sam Arman
School of Biological Sciences
Flinders University
GPO Box 2100, Adelaide SA 5001
mob. 0431 197 171
tel.: 08 8201 5342
fax: 08 8201 3015
email: samuel.arman@flinders.edu.au
Marissa Betts
Department of Biological Sciences
Macquarie University
North Ryde, NSW 2109 Australia
Phone: +61-2-98507719
E-mail: marissa.betts@students.mq.edu.au
Glenn A. Brock
Department of Biological Sciences
Macquarie University
North Ryde, NSW 2109 Australia
Phone: +61-2-98508335
Fax: +61-2-98508245
E-mail: glenn.brock@mq.edu.au
Carey Burke
School of Biological Sciences
Flinders University
GPO Box 2100, Adelaide SA 5001
tel.: 08 8201 2630
fax: 08 8201 3015
email: carey.burke@flinders.edu.au
Carole J. Burrow
Geosciences, Queensland Museum
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Telephone number: 07 33916626
Fax number: 07 38461918
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Aaron Camens
School of Biological Sciences
Flinders University
79
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fax: 08 8201 3015
email: aaron.camens@adelaide.edu.au,
Tony Cockbain
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South Perth WA 6151
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geoedit@arach.net.au
Rachel Correll
School of Biological Sciences
Flinders University
GPO Box 2100, Adelaide SA 5001
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tel.: 08 8201 2764
fax: 08 8201 3015
email: rachel.correll@flinders.edu.au
Aidan Couzens
School of Biological Sciences
Flinders University
GPO Box 2100, Adelaide SA 5001
tel.: 08 8201 2630
fax: 08 8201 3015
Email: aidan.couzens@flinders.edu.au
Mary L. Droser
Department of Earth Sciences
University of California
Riverside, CA 92521, U.S.A.
Phone: 1 951 827 3797
mary.droser@ucr.edu
Greg Edgecombe
Department of Palaeontology, The Natural History Museum,
Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK
Phone: +44 (0)20 7942 6464
E-mail: g.edgecombe@nhm.ac.uk
80
Col Eglington
Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences
Macquarie University
North Ryde, NSW 2109 Australia
Postal address: 39 Piggott St, Dulwich Hill, NSW 2203
Phone: +61-2-95605769
E-mail: col.eglington@tafensw.edu.au
Michael Engelbretsen
Department of Biological Sciences
Macquarie University
North Ryde, NSW 2109 Australia
Phone +61-2-95873725
E-mail: michael.engelbretsen@mq.edu.au
Terry Furey-Greig
Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences
Macquarie University
North Ryde, NSW 2109 Australia
Postal address: 3 Mason St, Kandos, NSW 2484, Australia
Phone: +61-2-63796039
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J.A. (Jack) Grant-Mackie
31 Moira St, Ponsonby, Auckland 1021
NEW ZEALAND.
Ph. 64-9-378-4779;
E-mail: grant-mackie@xtra.co.nz
Kathleen Grey
Geological Survey of Western Australia,
Department of Industry and Resources,
100 Plain Street, East Perth WA 6004
Telephone number: +61 08 9470 0302
E-mail address: kath.grey@dmp.wa.gov.au
Grant Gully
School of Biological Sciences
Flinders University
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fax: 08 8201 3015
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Michelle Guzel
School of Life and Environmental Sciences,
Deakin University Burwood Campus,
221 Burwood Highway, Burwood. Victoria 3125
Tel: 0448117714
Fax: +61 3 9251 7416
E-mail: Michelle.Guzel@bcdresources.com.au
Margaret Harvey
Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences
Macquarie University
North Ryde, NSW 2109 Australia
Postal address: PO Box 453, Wahroonga, NSW 2046
E-mail: belodella@gmail.com
Darren Hastie
School of Life and Environmental Sciences,
Deakin University Burwood Campus,
221 Burwood Highway Burwood Victoria, 3125
Tel: +61 3 9251 7438
Fax: +61 3 9251 7416
E-mail: wood_gecko@hotmail.com
W.B. Keith Holmes and Heidi M. Anderson Holmes
46 Kurrajong St. Dorrigo. NSW 2453
Telephone 02 66572205
Email wbkholmes@hotmail.com
Matthew Kosnik
Department of Biological Sciences
Macquarie University
North Ryde, NSW 2109 Australia
Phone: +61-2-98507249
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E-mail: matthew.kosnik@mq.edu.au
John Laurie
Energy Division
Geoscience Australia
GPO Box 378
Canberra ACT 2601 Australia
Tel: (02) 6249 9412
Fax: (02) 6249 9980
E-mail: John.Laurie@ga.gov.au
82
Sangmin Lee
School of Life and Environmental Sciences,
Deakin University Burwood Campus,
221 Burwood Highway, Burwood. Victoria, 3125
Tel: +61 3 9251 7296
Fax: +61 3 9251 7416
E-mail: sangminl@deakin.edu.au
Wenzhong Li
School of Life and Environmental Sciences,
Deakin University Burwood Campus,
221 Burwood Highway, Burwood. Victoria, 3125
Tel: +61 3 9251 7191
Fax: +61 3 9251 7416
E-mail: liwenzhong@hotmail.com
Julien Louys
Geosciences, Queensland Museum
122 Gerler Rd, Hendra 4011 QLD
07 3406 8347
julien.louys@qm.qld.gov.au
Amy Macken
School of Biological Sciences
Flinders University
GPO Box 2100, Adelaide SA 5001
mob.: 0405 710 648
tel.: 08 8201 2630
fax: 08 8201 3015
email: amy.macken@flinders.edu.au
David Mathieson
Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences
Macquarie University
North Ryde, NSW 2109 Australia
Postal address: 26 St Albans St, Abbotsford, NSW 2046, Australia
Phone: +61-2-97135814
E-mail: dmath@exemail.com.au
Briony Mamo
Department of Biological Sciences
Macquarie University
83
North Ryde, NSW 2109 Australia
Phone: +61-2-98507719
E-mail: briony.mamo@mq.edu.au
Julieta Martinelli
Department of Biological Sciences
Macquarie University,
North Ryde, NSW 2109 Australia
Phone: +61-2-98507719
E-mail: julieta.martinelli@students.mq.edu.au
Ruth Mawson
Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences
Macquarie University
North Ryde, NSW 2109
Postal address: 228 Ridgecrop Drive, Castle Hill 2154, Australia
Phone: +61-2-96341815
E-mail: rmawson37@gmail.com
Matthew McDowell
School of Biological Sciences
Flinders University
GPO Box 2100, Adelaide SA 5001
tel.: 08 8201 2764
fax: 08 8201 3015
email: matthew.mcdowell@flinders.edu.au
Brian McGowran
Earth & Environmental Sciences
The University of Adelaide, SA 5005, Australia
Ph:
61 8 8278 2222
brian.mcgowran@adelaide.edu.au
Stephen McLoughlin
Department of Paleobotany, Swedish Museum of Natural History,
Box 50007, S-104 05 Stockholm SWEDEN
Ph: +46 (0)8 5195 4142
Fax: +46 (0)8 5195 4221
Email: steve.mcloughlin@nrm.se
James Moore
School of Biological Sciences
Flinders University
GPO Box 2100, Adelaide SA 5001
84
tel.: 08 8201 2630
fax: 08 8201 3015
email: james.moore@flinders.edu.au
Roger Morgan
Jeffery Goodall
Morgan Goodall Palaeo Pty Ltd
Box 161, 27 Elizabeth St
Maitland SA 5573
+61 8 8832 2795
roger.morgan@Mgpalaeo.com.au
jeffery.goodall@Mgpalaeo.com.au
Qamariya Nasrullah
School of Biological Sciences
Flinders University
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John R. Paterson
Division of Earth Sciences, Earth Studies building (C02)
School of Environmental and Rural Science
University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2351
Phone: (02) 6773 2101
Fax: (02) 6773 3300
Email: jpater20@une.edu.au
Ian Percival
Geological Survey of NSW
WB Clarke Geoscience Centre
947-953 Londonderry Rd,
Londonderry. NSW Australia 2753
tel. (02) 4777 0315
e-mail: ian.percival@industry.nsw.gov.au
Roger Pierson
School of Life and Environmental Sciences,
Deakin University Burwood Campus,
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Tel: +61 3 9251 7191
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E-mail: r_dpierson@yahoo.com.au
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Geoffrey Playford
School of Earth Sciences
University of Queensland, St Lucia QLD
tel. +61 7 3365 2366 or +55 3865 4700;
fax +61 7 3365 1277 or +55 3865 7093;
email g.playford@uq.edu.au
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Nick Porch
School of Life and Environmental Sciences
Deakin University Burwood Campus,
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Web: www.deakin.edu.au/scitech/les/staff/porchn/
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Christian Pott
Department of Paleobotany, Swedish Museum of Natural History,
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Gavin Prideaux
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Flinders University
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Gregory J. Retallack
Department of Geological Sciences
University of Oregon,
Eugene, Oregon, USA 9740301272
Ph. 541 346 4558
Fax 541 346 4692
gregr@uoregon.edu
Thomas Rich
Museum Victoria
PO Box 666
Melbourne, Victoria 3001
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e-mail: trich@museum.vic.gov.au
Andrew Rozefelds
Queensland Museum, Geosciences
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email: andrew.rozefelds@qm.qld.gov.au
Bruce Runnegar
Department of Earth and Space Sciences
University of California
Los Angeles, CA 90095-1567, U.S.A.
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runnegar@ucla.edu
Rolf Schmidt
Museum Victoria
PO Box 666
Melbourne, Victoria 3001
Telephone: (03) 9270 5052
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J. William Schopf
Department of Earth and Space Sciences
University of California
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Vic Semeniuk
V & C Semeniuk Research Group
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Lawrence Sherwin
Geological Survey of NSW
Dept of Trade & Investment
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Ph. (02) 6360 5349
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Guang R. Shi
School of Life and Environmental Sciences
Deakin University Burwood Campus
221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125
Telephone number: +61 3 9251 7619
Fax number: +61 3 9251 7416
E-mail address: grshi@deakin.edu.au
Andrew Simpson
Department of Environment and Geography
Macquarie University
North Ryde, NSW 2109 Australia
Phone: +61-2-98508183
Fax: +61-2-98509671
E-mail: andrew.simpson@mq.edu.au
Christian Skovsted
Department of Paleozoology, Swedish Museum of Natural History,
Box 50007, S-104 05 Stockholm SWEDEN
Phone: +46 (0)8 5195 5133
E-mail: Christian.Skovsted@nrm.se
Ben Slater
School of Geography, Earth & Environmental Science,
University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK.
Tel: +44 (0)121 41 46151
Fax: +44 (0)121 41 44942
Email: BXS574@bham.ac.uk
Jeffrey Stilwell
School of Geoscience
Monash University
P.O. Box 28 Victoria 3800
Telephone: (03) 9905 1642
FAX: (03) 9905 5161
e-mail: jeffrey.stilwell@monash.edu
Desmond L. Strusz
97 Burnie Street, Lyons, ACT, Australia 2606
tel. (02) 6281 4569 or (02) 6125 2065
e-mail desmonnd-strusz@homemail.com.au
dstrusz@ems.anu.edu.au
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John Talent
Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences
Macquarie University
North Ryde, NSW 2109. Australia
Phone: +61-2-404395032
E-mail: jatalent32@gmail.com
Timothy Topper
Geological Museum
University of Copenhagen
Øster Voldgade 5-7
DK - 1350 Copenhagen K. Denmark
Phone: +45-3532-2362
E-mail: timothy.topper@gmail.com
Katherine Trinajstic
QEII Fellow, Western Australian Organic Isotope Geochemistry Centre,
Department of Chemistry, Curtin University
GPO Box U1987, WA, 6001. Australia
Ph. (08) 9266 2492
K.Trinajstic@curtin.edu.au
Susan Turner
Queensland Museum Geosciences,
122 Gerler Road, Hendra, Qld 4011
Telephone number: 07 3406 8350
Fax number: 07 3406 8355
E-mail address: sue.turner@qm.qld.gov.au
paleodeadfish@yahoo.com
Vivi Vajda
Department of Earth and Ecosystem Sciences
Division of Geology, Lund University
Sölvegatan 12, S-223 62 Lund, SWEDEN
Telephone: +46 46-2224635
Fax: +46 46-2224419
E-mail: Vivi.Vajda@geol.lu.se
James Valentine
Department of Biological Sciences
Macquarie University
North Ryde, NSW 2109 Australia
Phone: +61-2-98508238
E-mail: james.valentine@mq.edu.au
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Fons VandenBerg
Geosciences
Museum Victoria
GPO Box 666, Melbourne Vic 3001
Email: avandenberg@museum.vic.gov.au
Tegan A. Vanderlaan
Email: tegan_av@hotmail.com
Website: http://www.bees.unsw.edu.au/
Patricia Vickers-Rich
School of Geosciences
Monash University
P.O. Box 28, Victoria 3800
Telephone: (03) 9905 4889
Fax: (03) 9905 5161
e-mail: pat.rich@monash.edu
Mark Warne
School of Life and Environmental Sciences
Deakin University Burwood Campus
221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125
Telephone number: +61 3 9251 7622
Fax number: +61 3 9251 7416
E-mail address: mwarne@deakin.edu.au
Barry D. Webby
Department of Earth & Planetary Sciences
Macquarie University
North Ryde, NSW 2109. Australia
Phone: +61-2-98164020
E-mail: bwebby25@gmail.com
Elizabeth A. Weldon
School of Life and Environmental Sciences,
Deakin University Burwood Campus,
221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125
Tel: 0448117714
Fax: +61 3 9251 7416
E-mail: weldon@deakin.edu.au
eaweldon@gmail.com
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Rod Wells
School of Biological Sciences
Flinders University
GPO Box 2100, Adelaide SA 5001
tel.: 08 8201 2437
fax: 08 8201 3015
email: rod.wells@flinders.edu.au
Yang Zhang
School of Life and Environmental Sciences,
Deakin University Burwood Campus,
221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125
Tel: +61 3 9251 7296
Fax: +61 3 9251 7416
E-mail: zyan@deakin.edu.au
Yichun Zhang
School of Life and Environmental Sciences,
Deakin University Burwood Campus,
221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125
Tel: +61 3 9251 7304
(mob. 0413 977 641)
Fax: +61 3 9251 7416
E-mail: geozyc@yahoo.com
y.zhang@deakin.edu.au
Yong Yi Zhen
Palaeontology, Natural Science Collections,
The Australian Museum,
6 College St., Sydney, NSW 2010. Australia
Telephone 02 9320 6132
E-mail address: yongyi.zhen@austmus.gov.au
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