Since the discovery of gold at Cape River in 1867, mining has played an important role in North Queensland by providing income, opening up new areas to settlement and providing markets for pastoralists and retailers. Mining is valued at more than $700 million per annum. Over 24 million ounces of gold have been mined or discovered in North Queensland. The Charters Towers district is a world class gold province with 15 million ounces of gold discovered in that area alone to date. Bauxite is a major commodity, contributing 10% of the world's production. The area has also been a major tin producer, and has produced, or is producing, base metals, nickel, tungsten, kaolin, antimony, silver, gemstones, limestone, dimension stone, dolomite, perlite, fluorite, molybdenum and diatomite.

Legacy product - no abstract available

Irene Crespin, O.B.E., B.A., D.Sc., has both pioneered her field of study and become an internationally accepted specialist-a goal of many scientists. Therefore it is most appropriate to honour such a distinguished Australian micropalaeontologist with a commemorative volume of special papers in this, her eighty-first year; and it is a pleasure and honour for me to be associated with this volume, which was initiated and organized by her colleagues and foraminiferal specialists Dr D. J. Belford, who has carried on her work in the Bureau, and Dr Viera Scheibnerova.

A collection of Palaeontological Paers, 1967.

Late Tertiary intermontane lacustrine and fluviatile deposits in the Morobe District of New Guinea contain vertebrate fossils in association with dated pyroclastic rocks. Metamorphic rocks ranging in age from probable Palaeozoic to middle or late Cretaceous form a complex basement into which granodiorite plutons were intruded in the late Cretaceous or early Tertiary. From probable Oligocene or Miocene time porphyritic rocks intruded the metamorphics and granodiorite; this activity culminated in explosive vulcanism which produced vast quantities of agglomerate. The agglomerate blocked the drainages, and lacustrine and laterally restricted floodplain deposits formed behind the dams during the Pliocene. A formation, the Otibanda Formation, which includes lacustrine sediments, f100dplain deposits, and interbedded tuffs is formally defined. Its thickness cannot be estimated, but a measured section is more than 2500 feet thick. The type section at 'Sunshine' contains fossiliferous sandstone and mudstone with conglomerate and intercalated pyroclastic rocks which yield Potassium/Argon dates from below the mammal horizons of 6.1 and 7.6 million years. A 5.7 million year date higher in the section is associated with the type faunal locality, which has produced an incisor of the earliest known rodent from the Australian region and new representatives of the marsupial families Ma«ropodidae and Diprotodontidae. The fauna also includes gastropods, crocodilians, snakes, birds, and a dasyurid. Fossil vertebrates have been collected from 21 widely scattered localities.

Bullentin 80, is a collection of Palaeontological Papers, 1965.

Terebratuloids have a sporadic distribution in the Australian Permian rocks, but at some localities they are abundant. Two distinct provinces, an eastern and a western, are recognised. The eastern is dominated by the genera Gilledia SteWi and Fletcherithyris nom. novo pro Fletcherina Stehli; less abundant genera are Maorielasma Waterhouse, Marinurnula Waterhouse, Glossothyropsis Girty, Pseudodielasma Brill, and Jisuina Grabau. The last three genera are represented by a few specimens only, and are of little zoogeographical significance. The only other area in which similar faunas are known is New Zealand. The western province is dominated by Hoskingia gen. nov., but it also has representatives of Fletcherithyris, Gilledia, and Yochelsonia Stehli. The abundance of Hoskingia indicates possible relationships with the Tethyan and Uralian provinces, though the absence of the Notothyris group shows that there was no open migration from these areas. This distribution supports other evidence of a climatic difference between eastern and western Australia at this time. The group is of interest stratigraphically. The genera Maorielasma and Marinurnula, and the species of Gilledia, Fletcherithyris, and Yochelsonia, are all short-ranged. Many of the species are restricted to single basins. An attempt is made to provide a consistent terminology for the internal plates of terebratuloids, and a theoretical discussion of the homologies of these plates is given. It is shown that despite previous assertions to the contrary, punctation density can be a taxonomically useful feature in the group. In the systematic section the new Family Gillediidae and Subfamily Gillediinae are established, together with the new Genus Hoskingia of the Subfamily Dielasmatinae. In addition to the genera mentioned above, Beecheria Hall and Clarke is discussed in detail. The status of the long established species RhYllchonella' inversa de Koninck, Gilledia jervisensis (Etheridge), and G. cymbae/ormis (Morris) is considered, and it is shown that they cannot be adequately interpreted at the present time. The species Fletcherithyris amygdala (Dana), Hoskingia trigonopsis (Hosking), Hoskingia nobilis (Etheridge), and Yochelsonia thomasi Stehli, are redescribed. It is shown that Terebratula biundata McCoy is a synonym of F. amygdala (Dana). New species of Fletcherithyris, Hoskingia, Yoche/sonia, Gilledia, Maorielasma, and Marinurnula are described.

The aim of this Bulletin is to provide a reference volume outlining Australia's mineral resources. As far as possible, all known deposits of actual or potential economic importance, and deposits or fields from which production has been recorded in the past, are listed, and a brief description is given of the geology of the more important, including many which are no longer productive. The 55 chapters of this volume are in the form of summarized studies of individual minerals or groups of minerals. The treatment is necessarily brief but the reader who wishes to know more of any particular aspect of the subject will find, in the comprehensive list of references, a guide to detailed published descriptions. Production of the volume has been a co-operative effort. The work of the Bureau's team which assembled and wrote the chapters has been supplemented by data and comments received from the Mines Departments of the States and Territories. As a result this compilation represents a combined Commonwealth and State contribution to the propagation of information on the extent and variety of Australia's mineral resources. It is hoped that it will help to stimulate further mineral exploration in this country.

One of the outstanding features of the Lower Miocene beds in Victoria is the presence of many larger foraminiferal species, many of the genera being restricted to this horizon, thereby being extremely valuable as zonal fossils, and affording excellent markers for the correlation of beds in different areas. The larger foraminifera have been found abundantly in the borings that have been put down for oil and water throughout the State. They also occur in several outcrops. The genera restricted to the Lower Miocene of Victoria include-Lepidocyclina, Cycloclypeus, Trillina, and Hofkerina. These are usually found associated with the more widely ranging large forms as Amphistegina, Operculina, Carpenteria, Gypsina, and Planorbulinella, there being definitely restricted species of the last two genera. These restricted species are found in friable polyzoal limestones and marls, and in hard limestones. In this Bulletin, no attempt is made at systematic descriptions of the foraminifera. It is more in the nature of an attempt to help the field geologist to locate himself in the Tertiary sections throughout Victoria.

A discovery of importance to the geology of the Mandated Territory of New Guinea, and especially as far as the Tertiary foraminifera-bearing rocks are concerned, was recently made by N. H. Fisher, Esq., M.Sc., Government Geologist of New Guinea. During a short stay at the Chimbu aerodrome, whilst the aeroplane was being unloaded, Mr. Fisher collected specimens of a limestone from a small creek near the aerodrome, which is in the Wahgi River area, New Guinea. In a communication to the writer, he stated that these limestones form steep escarpments along the Bismarck Range on the northern side of the Wahgi Valley. The elevation of the locality is 5,100 feet above sea level. When a microscopic study of thin sections of this limestone, which was sent to Canberra for examination, was carried out, it was found that the rock contained two foraminiferal genera that had not been previously recorded from the Mandated Territory. These genera were Lacazina and Biplanispira. Lacazina has been recorded by Dutch geologists from the Eocene of Dutch New Guinea but Biplanispira, as far as is known, has previously been determined only from the Eocene of Borneo.