A number of selected specimens from the Tennant Creek mining field were submitted for examination by N.J. McMillan. The object was to investigate the possibility that the talc in the area was derived by the metamorphism of ultrabasic rocks.

Mollusca from the Nanutarra Formation, a recently defined strata! unit cropping out along the north-eastern edge of the Carnarvon Basin of Western Australia, are described and the age of the' formation is discussed. The fossils occur largely as moulds of the original shells, so that their study has been based mainly on artificially prepared casts. Of about 48 forms recorded in the paper, only one (Pseudavicula anomala) has been definitely referred to a previously described species, four (Maccoyella aff. corbiensis. M. aff. barklyi, M. aff. moorei, and Modiolus aff. ensi/ormis) have been assigned qualified identifications with known species, and 18 are described as new; the remainder have been given only generic identifications, owing to the limitations of the material. The new species are as follows:-Nuculana hoelscheri, Glycymeris mckellari, Pacitrigonia? nanutarraensis, Pterotrigonia australiensis, "[socyprina" fairbridgei, "Corbicellopsis," nanutarraensis, Lucina macroporum, Mutiella? teicherti, Protocardia wapeti, Astarte (Nicaniella) mcwhaei, Eriphyla playjordi, Pleuromya ashburtonensis, Panopea glaessneri. CQrbula nanutarraensis, Muricotrochus? australiensis, Purpurina? yanreyensis, Procerithium (Rhabdocolpus) brunnschweileri, and" Acteonina" australiensis. Apart from the species of Pseudavicula, Maccoyella, and Modiolus, which have been identified, mostly with qualification, with Australian Lower Cretaceous species, the fossils bearing particularly on the age of the formation are those belonging to the genera Pterotrigonia (hitherto solely Cretaceous apart from one record from the Tithonian), Eriphyla (hitherto mainly Cretaceous, but known from the Upper Jurassic), Glycymeris (known from the Cretaceous but not from the Jurassic), and large Panopea (resembling several Cretaceous species and unlike any from the Jurassic). No species belongs to an exclusively Jurassic group. It is concluded that, notwithstanding palaeobotanical evidence of a Jurassic age, the Nanutarra Formation should be most probably referred to the Lower Cretaceous. It has yielded no ammonites or brachiopods.

The original aim of this study was to investigate some of the early Palaeozoic Bryozoa of Australia so as to study the development of skeletal structures in the zoaria and the significance of distribution of species in the different stratigraphic successions. It was found that areas with abundant bryozoan faunas were not readily located; in many areas such as the Yass-Taemas and Tamworth districts, New South Wales, where Silurian and Devonian marine faunas are abundant, Bryozoa were poorly represented. Thus the work became an investigation of areas where Bryozoa were located. The Middle and Upper Ordovician exposures in parts of central-western New South Wales and the Middle and Upper Devonian sequence of the Fitzroy Basin (collected by the field parties of the Bureau of Mineral Resources) contained abundant bryozoan faunas at certain horizons; but they were not distributed continuously through any considerable thickness of succession. Many samples from which Bryozoa are described in the text are isolated occurrences from which two, sometimes three, species have been collected.

A reconnaissance seismic survey, subsidised by the Commonwealth of Australia, was made for Phillips Petroleum Company of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, D.S.A. and Sunray Mid-Continent Oil Company of Tulsa, Oldahoma, D.S.A. by Petty Geophysical Engineering Company of San Antonio, Texas. This survey was located within Authority to Prospect 72P in the Quilpie-Thargomindah-Charleville area of South-western Queensland. The purpose of the survey was to obtain information on the regional geology beneath the Mesozoic formations of the Great Artesian Basin north and west of the Eulo Shelf. Three deep structural basins beneath the sub-Mesozoic unconformity are indicated.

This report refers to seismic work carried out in the Puri area of Papua by Seismograph Service Ltd. for Australasian Petroleum Co. Pty. Ltd. during the period 6th May - 15th December, 1959. The objective ofthe survey was to determine the structural pattern of the Tertiary limestones in order to define any closed structures that may have economic oil accumulations. Altogether some 75 miles of continuous reflection traverses were observed and also a single refraction in-line profile of two spreads. An anticlinal feature was observed along one line but as there was no evidence of any significant pitch reversal along the strike line it seems there is no structure worth drilling in the area south of the Puri and Kereru Anticlines. The overall quality of the reflection data was poor but was considered adequate to disprove the presence of any major closed structures.

This report describes two gravity surveys conducted by Mines Administration Pty Ltd for The Papuan Apinaipi Petroleum Co. Ltd during the period June 1959 to October 1959. The purpose of the first survey, a detailed gravity survey over the Wira Anticline. was to confirm closure in the Wira Culmination and to obtain information on the possibility of limestone occurring in the sediments below the culmination. The other survey a regional gravity traverse from the Wira Anticline down the Purari River, was expected to extend the gravitational trends shown in the Purari area by a previous survey. No gravity anomaly was established that could be correlated with the surface geological structure of the Wira Anticline. The results indicate that the largest negative anomaly occurs east of the Purari River below the Aure Scarp Starkey has drawn similar conclusions from his gravity work which was carried out southwards along the Purari and Vailala Rivers in 1958.

A reflection seismic survey was conducted in 1959-60 on Authority to Prospect 55P by Austral Geo Prospectors Pty. Ltd. for Associated Australian Oilfields N. L. through their management affiliate, Mines Administration Pty. Ltd., in an area approximately 30 miles north of Roma, Queensland. The primary purpose of the survey was to determine whether the sedimentary section thickened northward into a geologic basin postulated to exist north of the Roma area. A secondary objective was to outline any structure that might be disclosed by the initial lines of survey. Data obtained show a rapid thickening of section towards the north and east of the junction of Eumamurrin and Bungil Creeks. A pronounced structure was outlined in the vicinity of land portion 8, Parish of Eumamurrin and land portions 43V and 55V, Parish of Gubberamunda.

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These documents have been scanned by the GA Library. Please refer to the document for contents.

These documents have been scanned by the GA Library. Please refer to the document for contents.