N u d u m omen number 31 Published December 2011

Staff Roles and Expertise 2011

Prof. Mike Hall - Basin Analysis and seismic interpretation

Prof. Emer. Ray Cas - Volcanology, sedimentology and palaeoenvironments

Dr Ray Bate (UK) – Ostracod 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

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 Pre-Salt 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’

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]

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. 2^nd 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 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: 21-25.

Reeves, J.M. 2010. The Barwon Estuary – see change? Proceedings of the Australasian Quaternary Association Biennial Meeting. 11-16^th 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.