N u d u m omen number 31 Published December 2011

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 Hamilton-Bruce 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 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 double-page 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 dolphin-like 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.

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.

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].

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.

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 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 chain-smoker 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

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.

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. Unfortunately the best place for many is Arctic Canada, but the logistics involved there would preclude such a location.

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.
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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 semi-monographic 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 11^th International Symposium on the Ordovician System (held in Spain in May, 2011) and was involved in a third – all were published in the Symposium 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 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. & 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 6^th 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.

Sherwin L. 2011. East Gondwana – an extended mobile zone. Siluria Revisited, Ludlow, International Subcommission on Silurian Stratigraphy, Abstracts.

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 co-convenes 4 x 3^rd 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 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 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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Balthasar, U., Holmer, L.E., Skovsted, C.B. & Brock, G.A. 2009. Homologous skeletal secretion in tommotiids and brachiopods. Geology 37, 1143-1146.