Product catalogue
The Alcoota fauna, Central Australia : an integrated palaeontological and geological study
A rich concentration of fossil vertebrates has been found in middle Tertiary sediments near Alcoota station in the Northern Territory, Australia. The sediments, which are about 70 feet thick, comprise a basal drab lacustrine siltstone overlain by red fluviatile siltstone, sandstone, and conglomerate, capped by chalcedonic limestone. They are generally flatlying and are designated the Waite Formation. The Waite Formation rests unconformably on lateritized Archaean gneiss and quartzite. The geological evidence clearly' indicates that the laterite antedates the Waite Formation and is, therefore, no later than Miocene in age. The vertebrate assemblage recovered from the drab lacustrine siltstones at the base of the Waite Formation is designated the Alcoota fauna. It includes a crocodile seemingly related to C. porosus of New Guinea and a number of large emu-like birds. A new wallabysized macropodid is apparently related to Dorcopsis and Dorcopsulus, which are also currently found in New Guinea. A new genus of large macropodid may represent an early sthenurine, but it also shows some affinity to the Pliocene and Pleistocene genus Protemnodon. The presence of the protemnodont lineage during Alcoota time is firmly established by four isolated upper first incisors, but these teeth probably do not belong to the new genus. The bulk of the animal remains belong to the extinct family Diprotodontidae. One of these is a new species of Palorchestes. The others have been described previously as three new genera and species. Cranial material of these three genera, not available earlier, is described. The geological and palaeontological evidence indicates that the middle Tertiary' climate around Alcoota was at least subtropical. The seasonal precipitation was undoubtedly much more effective than at present. In the dry season, animals were apparently drawn in large numbers to the shores of a lake which had developed in a depression in the old lateritized terrain. Each year some of the animals perished around the shore, and their remains were entombed nearby. In stage of evolution, the members of the Alcoota fauna are younger than those from the Kutjamarpu fauna (middle Miocene) of South Australia and older than those of the Beaumaris (early Pliocene) fauna from the Sandringham Sands of Victoria. The age of the Alcoota fauna, in these terms, is late Miocene or possibly early Pliocene.
Simple
Identification info
- Date (Publication)
- 1967-01-01T00:00:00
- Citation identifier
- Geoscience Australia Persistent Identifier/https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/166
- Cited responsible party
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Publisher Bureau of Mineral Resources, Geology and Geophysics
Canberra Author Woodburne, M.O.
1
- Name
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Bulletin
- Issue identification
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087
- Point of contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Custodian Corp
Owner Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Custodian Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice
- Topic category
-
- Geoscientific information
Extent
))
- Maintenance and update frequency
- Unknown
Resource format
- Title
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Product data repository: Various Formats
- Website
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Data Store directory containing the digital product files
Data Store directory containing one or more files, possibly in a variety of formats, accessible to Geoscience Australia staff only for internal purposes
- Keywords
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GA Publication
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Bulletin
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- Theme
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palaeontology
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- Theme
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geology
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- Keywords
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AU-NT
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- Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)
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Earth Sciences
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- Keywords
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Published_External
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Resource constraints
- Title
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Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence
- Alternate title
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CC-BY
- Edition
-
4.0
- Access constraints
- License
- Use constraints
- License
Resource constraints
- Title
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Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
Distribution Information
- Distributor contact
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Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Distributor Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice
- OnLine resource
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Download the Bulletin (pdf)
Download the Bulletin (pdf)
- Distribution format
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pdf
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Resource lineage
- Statement
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Unknown
- Hierarchy level
- Non geographic dataset
- Other
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GA Publication
- Description
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Source data not available.
Metadata constraints
- Title
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Australian Government Security ClassificationSystem
- Edition date
- 2018-11-01T00:00:00
- Classification
- Unclassified
Metadata
- Metadata identifier
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urn:uuid/a05f7892-9d09-7506-e044-00144fdd4fa6
- Title
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GeoNetwork UUID
- Language
- English
- Character encoding
- UTF8
- Contact
-
Role Organisation / Individual Name Details Point of contact Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia)
Voice
Type of resource
- Resource scope
- Document
- Name
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Legacy AGSO BMR Bulletins
Alternative metadata reference
- Title
-
Geoscience Australia - short identifier for metadata record with
uuid
- Citation identifier
- eCatId/166
- Date info (Revision)
- 2018-04-20T06:17:22
- Date info (Creation)
- 1996-10-29T00:00:00
Metadata standard
- Title
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AU/NZS ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-1:2014
Metadata standard
- Title
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ISO 19115-3
- Title
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Geoscience Australia Community Metadata Profile of ISO 19115-1:2014
- Edition
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Version 2.0, September 2018
- Citation identifier
- https://pid.geoscience.gov.au/dataset/ga/122551