Coral faunas from the Silurian of New South Wales and the Devonian of Western Australia  

Authors / CoAuthors

Hill, D.

Abstract

Part I. deals with Devonian coral faunas from the West Kimberleys, the East Kimberleys, and the Carnarvon Basin of Western Australia. Of the 30 species described and illustrated from the West Kimberley's, 22 are from the Pilbara Limestone, and of these fifteen are from the main (lower) part of the Limestone of Givetian age, but there are five from the Atrypa beds of Teichert which the Bureau of Mineral Resources equates with the upper part of the Pillara Limestone and which may be late Givetian or possibly Frasnian; one Disphyllurn occurs in Atrypa beds referred by Teichert to Oberdevonstufe (Frasnian). This Pillara Limestone fauna (lower and upper) is dominated by Disphyllum with Hexagonaria, Thamnopora, and Alveolites also important. The overlying Mount Pierre Group, of Frasnian (Oberdevonstufe I) and early Famennian (ll and III) age, and the Bugle Gap Limestone (IV), have a strikingly different fauna mostly of small slender solitary corals. A new genus of Rugosa, Catactotoechus, type, species C. irregularis sp. nov., is described and figured. The East Kimberley corals are the Upper Devonian Palaeosmlia contexta sp. novo and Syringopora patula Hinde. From the Carnarvon Basin only four species are known, all from the Gneudna Formation; the genera to which they belong are those dominant and characteristic in the Pillara Limestone of the West Kimberleys, and in upper Givetian and early Frasnian faunas elsewhere, so that the Gneudna Formation Is probably of this age; the lack of identical species between the Carnanon and Kimberley Basins may be due to differences of province rather than time. The Western Australian Givetian coral faunas contain no species in common with those of eastern Australia, and many of the genera characteristic in eastern Australia, such as Endophyllum,, Sanidophyllum, and Heliolitcs, are absent in Western Australia. Part II deals with fragmentary coral material from the Silurian limestone, near Kiandra, southern New South Wales, including Halysites brevicatenatus sp. nov.; only two species are identified with previously described Australian forms, but the age indicated is probably Wenlockian, possibly Ludlovian.

Product Type

document

eCat Id

219

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Keywords

• GA PublicationBulletin

( Theme )

• marine

• AU

Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)

• Earth Sciences

• Published_External

Publication Date

1954-01-01T00:00:00

Creation Date

Security Constraints

Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem    

Classification - unclassified

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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence    

Access - license

Use - license

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Purpose

Maintenance Information

unknown

Topic Category

geoscientificInformation

Series Information

Bulletin 023

Lineage

Unknown

Parent Information

Extents

[-44.0, -10.0, 112.0, 155.0]

Reference System

Spatial Resolution

Service Information

Associations

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