Australian National University Report 2001 – 2002

Report 2001-2002:- We have had three issues concerning us during 2001-2002. The origin of dipnoans and their relationship to the primitive Chinese genus Diabolepis has caused difficulty. Our paper was first reviewed by a cladist who gave it the mark of 4 out of 10. Nevertheless it was published, and awakened us to the problems caused by people who accept the climate of opinion on a topic, and reject other people's work despite the fact that clear arguments are produced to support an alternative position.

Secondly we have published a paper on a strange Middle Devonian dipnoan, Dipnotuberculus from Morocco. This had many features in common with our Emsian Dipnorhynchus from the Burrinjuck. Although the tooth plates are of the same kind, they have a most remarkable dental structure.

Thirdly we have spent most of 2002 preparing a paper on Onychodus from Gogo. This is by far the best preserved species of the genus yet known. The work was begun by Mahala Andrews in Scotland, but she died in Iona after retiring from the Scottish Museum. The diagrams and photos she had prepared were sent to us in Canberra, and we have prepared a text, many illustrations based on new material collected by ourselves and by John Long from Perth. John has also read and added to the manuscript. The whole work has been read and added to by Per Ahlberg from the Natural History Museum London, where the bulk of the original collection is now housed. The paper will be submitted with Andrews as the first author. Two major features are the appearance of two spiral whorls of tusks in the anterior part of the mouth. These required a complete remodelling of the anterior part of the head. And secondly the articulation of the mandible was based in cartilage, making a very flexible structure. This also required a reorganisation of the whole head structure. Only the anterior braincase has been fully ossified making a structure like that of Psarolepis.

Our work on the postcranial skeleton of the Gogo dipnoan Griphognathus whitei has been published. The toothplates of the early dipnoan genus Speonesydrion are being reinvestigated. They need detailed comparison with Dipterus valenciennesi. We have collected several more specimens from the type region, but work on them has just begun.

Keywords:- Devonian; lungfish; postcranial skeleton; Onychodus; functional morphology.

Name :-	Gavin Young (Visiting Fellow)
Contact details:-	Ph: (02) 6125 3446
	Email: gavin.young@geology.anu.edu.au

Report 1999-2000:- 1999 activities included teaching the Geology 2008 course as a temporary replacement for Patrick De Deckker, finalising mapping work on the Upper Devonian Hervey Group under a contract with AGSO, and various aspects of research on Palaeozoic vertebrates. Co-ordinating and preliminary editing of co-authored contributions from Australia for the fin al results volume of IGCP Project 328 ('Microvertebrate biochronology and marine/nonmarine correlation') took up significant time (published 2000). Macrovertebrate research in Paris during March-June 1999 (Visiting Professor, Museum national d'Histoire Naturelle), included attending the London symposium on 'Major events in early vertebrate evolution: palaeontology, phylogeny, and development' (April, 1999). Acid preparation of Early Devonian placoderm fish from Burrinjuck was carried out in the laboratory in Paris. Collaborative research with Professor Daniel Goujet and Dr Herve Lelievre (Paris) and Dr Elga Mark-Kurik (Tallinn) concerned new buchanosteid arthrodires from the Burrinjuck, and from the Early Devonian of Saudi Arabia, and the large Cravens Peak collection from the Georgina Basin. Award of a Humboldt Prize in 1999 covered 6 months research at the Museum fur Naturkunde Humboldt Universitat, Berlin. A 3 month period in Berlin in 2000 focussed on the first Upper Devonian fish locality from South America (the large Venezuelan collection of 1992), and a range of assemblages from new fish localities in the Upper Devonian of New South Wales.

Report 2001-2002:- A second 3 month period in Berlin in 2001 finalised the Venezuelan work, and included research on the early evolution of the brain and extrinsic eye muscles in early vertebrates (presented at the International Conference on Vertebrate Morphology in Jena, July 2001). Presentations were given on Devonian sharks and placoderms at the Early Vertebrate Symposium in Flagstaff, Arizona (2000), and a paper on Devonian vertebrate biogeography was presented at the 15th Senckenberg Conference in Frankfurt (2001). Main projects for the year 2002 were the completion for publication of a monograph on the Early Devonian Wuttagoonaspis fauna from the Georgina Basin (a large collection assembled in 1974 and 1977), preparation of the field guide for the IPC 2002 Fish Excursion, and several papers on brachythoracid arthrodires from the Burrinjuck area, and Broken River (Queensland). Six manuscripts resulting from this work are now submitted or in press. Some considerable time was spent preparing a proposal for a new IGCP project (with Dr Zhu Min, IVPP, China), and in putting together papers for a proceedings volume from IPC vertebrate symposia to be published in Fossils & Strata (including a paper with Carole Burrow on acanthodian fish from the Devonian Aztec Siltstone, Antarctica).

Keywords:- Palaeozoic vertebrates; morphology; phylogeny; biogeography; systematics.

Name :-	Barry Fordham
Contact details:-	CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems PO Box 284 Canberra, ACT 2601 Ph: (02) 6242 1530 Fax: (02) 6242 1782 Mob: 0421 611 913
	Email: barry.fordham@csiro.au

Report 2001-2002:- Barry joined CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems as Group Leader, National Futures (who model the physical economy of Australia) in August 2002. He has also joined the ANU paleontology discussion group, who hold interesting Xmas get-togethers. He continues biostratigraphic studies of conodonts as part of the Geological Survey of Queensland's Yarrol Project and hopes to find time to return to more efforts conodontological as he settles in to Canberra.

Keywords:- conodonts; Ordovician; Silurian; Devonian; Lower Carboniferous.

Name :-	Lynne Bean
Contact details:-	Ph: 6125 2059
	Email: s3336714@geology.anu.edu.au

Report 2001-2002:- Lynne has just completed a study of Leptolepis talbragarensis, one of the best known Jurassic fish from Australia, for her Graduate Diploma thesis. The material comes from the non-marine deposits in the Surat Basin. Bulk collections, made in the 1880s, were stored in the Australian Museum and the NSW Geological Survey, but specimens were exchanged with Museums overseas. As a result, overseas workers have used these materials to make a contribution on the small amount of specimens available, but nobody in Australia has made any further descriptions. Arratia has made a new genus Cavenderichthys for this species, and has indicated strongly that it was not a Leptolepis.

The species occurs in a thin bed only 60cm thick, and this has been described as a mudstone or chert. It is largely an ash fall which has been silicified. This has filled a small lake in overbank deposits, and it is because of this phenomenon that the preservation of the specimens is so good.

Lynne's analysis of the extensive material has shown up a number of characters particularly in the jaw suspension, the vertebral column and the caudal structure. This work supports the view that Cavenderichthys is a valid genus, and it should be placed in the Leptolepidae. The morphology also indicates that its age is Late rather than Early Jurassic. This has been confirmed by SHRIMP dates on the zircons obtained from a unit immediately below the fossil bed.

Keywords:- teleosts; Cavenderichthys; Late Jurassic; SHRIMP dates.

Name :-	David Ride
Contact details:-	Ph: (02) 6281 2641
	Email: d.ride@geology.anu.edu.au

Report:- David is working towards completing his guide and companion to the latest edition of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. He is also currently completing his studies on the mammal fauna of the Pleistocene of the northern Monaro (Southern Tablelands) of NSW.

Keywords:- ICZN; Pleistocene; mammals; NSW.

Name :-	John Magee
Contact details:-	Ph: (02) 6125 2761
	Email: jwmagee@geology.anu.edu.au

Report 2001-2002:- In collaboration with Gifford Miller, University of Colorado, Boulder, USA and Marilyn Fogel, Carnegie Institute, Washington, John is re-examining the extinction of the Australian megafauna. This question is being examined not just to resolve the long-standing debate about the relative roll of humans and climate change in the extinction but also to elucidate the role of long-term human impact in other facets of environmental change.

In Australia the extinct megafauna include marsupials, reptiles and the ostrich-sized bird Genyornis, and it seems likely that amongst herbivores, the extinction was selective for browsers rather than grazers. Debate on the cause of extinction has been bedevilled throughout by poor numerical chronology due to dependence, until recently, on radiocarbon which has been compromised by both the innately poor preservation of original carbon in bone under Australian conditions and the proximity of the extinction event to the resolution limits of the technique. Incorrectly younger dates due to contamination with younger carbon and association of reworked older faunal remains with younger dates have combined to suggest an almost certainly erroneous late survival of megafauna and long overlap with humans. Recent non-radiocarbon chronologies suggest an extinction date coeval across climatic zones and for a variety of taxa at 46-50±5ka, soon after the likely date of human arrival on the continent (55±5 ka), implicates a human role in the extinction but says nothing of the process. It is unlikely that the archaeological record will ever provide more than proof of human-megafauna overlap.

To finally resolve the extinction debate we need to obtain an unequivocal extinction chronology for a wide variety of taxa across a wide transect of climatic zones and to determine whether extinction was selective for dietary preference from an improved eco-physiological understanding of the animals and palaeodietary analyses. Before its extinction, Genyornis coexisted with emus at least across the arid and semi-arid zones where eggshells of both species occur relatively abundantly in aeolian sediments (Miller et al., 1999). While both are large flightless birds, they are taxonomically distant and are probably best regarded as convergent evolution within the bird lineage, with significant behavioural and physiological differences which resulted in Genyornis extinction and emu survival. In addition to being the most commonly occurring bio-mineral fossil, eggshell is far superior to bone for the preservation of its original chemistry, allowing excellent opportunities for chronology and isotopic palaeodietary studies. A major focus of our study is a comparison between Genyornis and emu characteristics across an environmental and climate gradient coupled with an examination of the timing and environmental context of Genyornis extinction, which we believe offers the best prospects for unravelling the cause and process of the extinction event.

Keywords:- extinction; megafauna; Dromornithids; Ratites; palaeoclimate; human-impact.

Name :-	Judith Caton
Contact details:-	Ph: (02) 6125 3633
	Email: j.caton@geology.anu.edu.au

Report 2001-2002:- Judith is studying the gastro-intestinal morphology and physiology of living hominids in order to model digestive strategies of fossil species. Theories that human predecessors were carnivores, which date back to the first fossil discoveries, overlook evidence to the contrary from living hominids. As the resultant models are based on new data from apes and humans, they are more realistic and based in an evolutionary context. Such models of fossil hominid digestive strategies will be used to re-assess the importance of meat-eating in human evolution, providing new insights into human diets and gut function.

Keywords:- fossil hominoids; modelling gut function; diets.

Name :-	Samir Shafik (Visiting Fellow)
Contact details:-	Ph: (02) 6125 2065
	Email: samir@geology.anu.edu.au

Report 2001-2002:- Samir has been out of circulation for the last 12 months due to illness. Now that he has almost recovered, Samir will soon resume his research work on nannofossil biostratigraphy. He will be focusing of several unfinished projects including the Oligocene/Miocene transition in the Torquay Basin, the Cainozoic section of the Great Australian Bight Basin, and Albian dredges from the offshore NW Australia.

Keywords:- nannofossil biostratigraphy; Cainozoic; Cretaceous; Australia.

Name :-	Michelle Spooner
Contact details:-	Ph: (02) 6125 2070
	Email: michelle@geology.anu.edu.au

Report 2001-2002:- Michelle completed her Honours thesis on "Late Quaternary palaeoceanography of the Banda Sea, with implications for past monsoonal climates" last year, under the supervision of Patrick De Deckker. The results of her Honours project are discussed in a paper currently submitted to the Journal of Asian Earth Sciences. After her Honours project, she enjoyed the hospitality of IFREMER and CNRS in France for two months, when she worked on deep-sea cores that she, and other ANU researchers, had taken from northwest Australian waters during the September 2000 cruise of the Marion Dufresne. On her return to Canberra, she momentarily left research for a full-time position at Geoscience Australia in the Marine Petroleum division.

Michelle was awarded an ANU scholarship, and by April 2002, she had started her PhD project with Patrick De Deckker as her supervisor. This has allowed her to return to her main interests in the investigation of the palaeoceanographic and palaeoclimatic responses in the Australasian region during the Late Quaternary. Using high-resolution cores from the Marion Dufresne and micropalaeontological techniques, her PhD will focus on surface water interaction of the Leeuwin Current. Collaboration with the French teams at CNRS will continue into 2003.

Keywords:- Late Quaternary; palaeoceanography; palaeoclimate; micropalaeontology; Leeuwin Current; Marion Dufresne.

Name :-	Julie Trotter
Contact details:-	Ph: (02) 6125 9967 Fax: (02) 6125 0738
	Email: julie.trotter@anu.edu.au

Report 2001-2002:- JuIie is currently on 3 years leave of absence from CSIRO to pursue a PhD in conodont geochemistry. The initial research objective is to clarify the geochemical stability of conodont apatite tissues and the implications for diagenesis within apparently 'pristine' single conodont elements. From determining the criteria to best discriminate primary geochemical signatures from secondary effects and background noise, the application to Ordovician and Early Silurian sequences will be pursued. This second phase of the project will apply multiproxy techniques (trace elements and isotope geochemistry) to key intervals within the context of geo- and bio-events (stasis, extinctions, radiations), to identify potential relationships between climate cycles, tectonics and fluxes in ambient seawater chemistry. Preliminary results of this research were presented in poster format at the International Palaeontological Congress meeting held at Macquarie University in July 2002. She anticipates (funding permitting) attending the 9th International Symposium on the Ordovician System next August to present new data on Ordovician ocean chemistry.

This research is being supported by an APA, some internal funding from RSES and Geology, and a Student Award from the Paleontological Society that she won earlier this year. Samples have kindly been provided by Chris Barnes and Bob Nicoll. Her supervisory panel represents diverse expertise from the geochemistry and palaeontology communities: Malcolm McCulloch (RSES), Steve Eggins (RSES), Patrick De Deckker (Geol. Dept), John Chappell (RSES), Chris Barnes (University of Victoria, BC, Canada) and Bob Nicoll (Geol. Dept). Expected completion of the project is January 2005.

Additionally, one foot has still been in the CSIRO camp to finalise a Sr Isotope Stratigraphy project on the Tofino Basin, British Columbia. This has been an integrated isotope-biostratigraphy study in collaboration with Chris Barnes (Univ. of Victoria) to help unravel the complex stratigraphy of this area, as part of a larger project to assess the potential hydrocarbon resources off the coast of British Columbia. A publication to be released within the Canadian petroleum community is anticipated next year.

Keywords:- conodont; Ordovician; geochemistry; apatite.

Name :-	Marty Young
Contact details:-	Ph: (02) 6125 5131 or (02) 6125 4312
	Email: marty.young@geology.anu.edu.au or myoung@coombs,anu.edu.au

Report 2001-2002:- Marty completed his Honours degree in 1999 at Victoria University of Wellington, NZ, where he used Cretaceous dinoflagellate cysts to date terrestrial (dinosaur) and marine reptile fossils found in sandstone and phosphatic concretions. He presented his results at the 1999 Annual Geological Society of New Zealand conference (held at Massey University), and was awarded a certificate of merit for his work. A paper from this project (titled 'Dating the Dinosaurs; the palynology and stratigraphy of the Maungataniwha Sandstone, Hawkes Bay, NZ') is due to be submitted to the New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics (with his supervisor Michael Hannah as co-author). Marty subsequently moved to Canberra (March 2000) where he worked as a visiting fellow at the Australian National University with Patrick De Deckker, looking at Quaternary dinocysts from SE Asia. At the conclusion of this appointment, Marty was employed with AGSO (now Geoscience Australia) as a Visiting Palynologist on a two-year contract with Clinton Foster, where he examined Mesozoic through to Cenozoic dinocysts from deep marine cores from the Great Australian Bight in order to date the material. An in-house paper ('Dinoflagellates as age indicators of deep marine hole sediments from the Great Australian Bight, South Australia') was written at the finalization of his contact. In August 2001, Marty took up the offer of a scholarship with the ANU to begin work on his PhD. Under the co-supervision of Geoff Hope and Patrick De Deckker, he is using Quaternary organic- and calcareous-walled dinocysts to reconstruct the globally significant climate of SE Asia over the past (approximately) 100 ka. Another focal point to his research is the viability of AMS radiocarbon dating of organic-walled dinocysts, which he started late 2002.

Keywords:- dinoflagellates; dinocysts; organic-walled; calcareous-walled; palaeoenvironment.

Name :-	Patrick De Decker
Contact details:-	Ph: (02) 6125 2057
	Email: Patrick.Dedeckker@anu.edu.au

Report 2001-2002:- Patrick is continuing his investigations into Quaternary marine environments recorded in deep-sea cores in the Australian region. Collaboration with several colleagues on those cores has aimed at obtaining multidisciplinary records of environmental change. Work with Sander van der Kaars [Monash University] dealt with pollen, with Kyoma Takahashi [Hokkaido University] dealt with calcareous nanoplankton, Lena Maeda [Japan Geological Survey] with trace metals in bulk sediments, Franz Gingele [ARC-IREX Fellow form Germany] on clay analyses, François Guichard and Aurelie Girault [CNRS, France] and Arne Sturm [GEOMAR, Germany] on bulk sediments, and finally Eva Calvo, Carles Pelejero and Tim Barrows [all at ANU] on alkenone temperature signals at the sea surface. A manuscript on modern acantharians and their role in affecting the chemistry of waters near the sea-surface is near completion. These unicellular microorganisms, which resemble radiolarians, secrete a strontium sulphate skeleton - which are never found as fossils as sea water is undersaturated with respect to that mineral - play a significant role in recycling Sr and Ba in sea water near the sea surface, and surprisingly are often more common that planktic foraminifers.

Patrick has completed old work on a core from the playa Lake Frome in South Australia, using the chemistry of ostracod shells for determining past hydrological changes form the Flinders ranges region spanning the last 50,000 years.

Keywords:- Late Quaternary; ostracods; foraminifers; acantharians; shell chemistry; deep sea; Lake Frome.

Name :-	Helen Bostock
Contact details:-	Ph: (02) 6125 4303
	Email: helenb@geology.anu.edu.au

Report 2001-2002:- Helen is presently half way through her PhD studies (The Palaeoceanography of the Capricorn Channel, Southern Great Barrier Reef) under the supervision of Bradley Opdyke. Originally from Cambridge, she completed a BA in Natural Sciences, and a MSc in Geology including her thesis on the diagenesis of the Aymamon Limestone (Miocene) in Puerto Rico. Helen is using a series of gravity cores from the southern Great Barrier Reef to study the oceanographic changes in the Tasman/Coral Sea region during the last glacial cycle. She is primarily using stable isotopes and trace elements of a range of different species of planktic and benthic foraminiferids to study changes in the water masses at different depths throughout this period, specifically the Antarctic intermediate water (AAIW). She is about to participate on an ODP cruise to the Demerara Rise (NE South America) which will cause her to digress into Cretaceous climates and carbon modelling for a couple of months.

Keywords:- carbonates; palaeoceanography; oceanography; palaeoclimate; Foraminiferida; AAIW.

Name :-	George Chaproniere (Visiting Fellow)
Contact details:-	Ph: (02) 6125 4303
	Email: gchaproniere@geology.anu.edu.au

Report 2001-2002:- George continues his studies on planktic foraminiferids from ODP Leg 189 Sites 1168 (west Tasmania margin) and 1172 (east Tasman Plateau). Site 1168 contains all planktic foraminiferal zones from the Pleistocene to Early Oligocene, with no measurable break. The assemblages are typically temperate, although incursions of warmer waters are recorded over some intervals. Together with excellent nannofossil assemblages and intermittent occurrences of dinoflagellates, an integrated biozonation will be possible. Unfortunately siliceous fossils (diatoms and radiolaria) are too rare to be integrated into this scheme. The Oligocene section is only present at this site, and though it is difficult to improve upon existing biozonation schemes, the distribution of the minute species, Chiloguembelina cubensis and Guembelitria triseriata within this interval may provide some hope for refining the long interval represented by the Turborotalia euapertura Zone. Site 1172 is yet to be studied in the same detail as for Site 1168, and as this site was under the influence of a different oceanographic regime (the Subtropical Front and East Australian Current) the biostratigraphic record may well show some differences to that in Site 1168. Two major differences are the gap between the Early and Late Oligocene, and a minor break at the end of the Miocene.

He has also worked on samples collected on various Geoscience Australia Cruises, mainly from the southern and eastern margins of Australia, the Norfolk Ridge and Lord Howe Rise. George continues to be the Australian Voting Member on the I.S.P.S. for Palaeogene Stratigraphy, and recently voted for the GSSP proposal for the base of the Eocene at the Dababiya section, Egypt.

Keywords:- planktic foraminiferids; Cenozoic; palaeoceanography; Australian margins.

Name :-

Elsie Gretton

Report 2001-2002:- Elsie studied Quaternary foraminiferids for her Honours thesis, entitled "Palaeoceanographic changes offshore New Caledonia for the last 140,000 years", which she completed in 2002.

Name :-	David Lindley
Contact details:-	Ph: (02) 6125 9892
	Email: lindley@geology.anu.edu.au

Report 2001-2002:- David completed his research on the Lower Devonian ischnacanthid acanthodian fish (the 'spiny sharks') fauna of the Murrumbidgee Group limestones at Lake Burrinjuck, New South Wales. Acanthodians of the Order Ischnacanthida possessed dentigerous jawbones with teeth firmly ankylosed on both upper and lower jawbones. Taxonomic results of this work, published in a series of papers in Alcheringa (Lindley 2000, 2002a, 2002b), documented well preserved jawbones, fin-spines and ornamented body scales, the only fossilised elements of these small, largely unossified fishes, from three levels in the sequence. Biostratigraphic results of the work, presented at the IPC-2002, Sydney, indicated the presence of at least seven endemic ischnacanthid species, whose varied morphologies are considered indicative of rapid evolutionary change (Lindley 2002c).

David is also undertaking research on Tertiary echinoderm faunas in Papua New Guinea; the first systematic work on this group since the work of the Rev. J.E. Tenison-Woods, published in 1878. Material has been gathered during mineral exploration in the country and a field trip to Yule Island, northwest of Port Moresby, in January 2002. The Lower Pliocene Yule Island fauna is rich and diverse, with 19 species known to occur in the Kairuku Formation (Lindley 2002d, 2002e, 2002f). The Yule Island fauna is significant for its proximity (600km) to the northern Great Barrier Reef, with its well documented echinoderm faunas. No marine Tertiary is known from Queensland and his research is now focussing on the implications of the Yule fauna for the origins of northern Australian tropical echinoid faunas. Without palaeontological evidence, previous workers, including most recently Robert Endean, concluded that tropical northern Australian faunas were derived from Recent East Indian and West Pacific stocks. However, nearly half of the Lower Pliocene Yule Island species are represented in northern Australia stocks.

Keywords:- acanthodian fishes; Devonian; Murrumbidgee Group; New South Wales; echinoids; Pliocene; Kairuku Formation; Papua New Guinea.

Name :-	Peter J. Jones (Visiting Fellow)
Contact details:-	Ph: (02) 6125 3372
	Email: peter.jones@geology.anu.edu.au

Report 2001-2002:- Peter Jones and Chen Pei-ji (Nanjing) continued the taxonomic revision of some Triassic and Permian conchostracan genera based on a redescription of their type species originally described from Australia. Genera considered so far are Nudusia, Palaeolimnadia, and Cyclestherioides.

The type species of the monotypic genus Ankumia, (A. bosqueti van Veen 1932; Late Cretaceous [Maastrichtian] from the Netherlands) was redescribed, and its multilamellar carapace interpreted as a pathological result of interrupted ecdysis (moult-retention) within the platycope genus Platella Coryell & Fields 1937. Thus, the genus Ankumia is regarded as a nomen dubium, unrelated to the puzzling crustacaean group Eridostraca, in which the multilamellar shell appears to be the natural growth pattern of the animal. The results are in press in the Journal of Micropalaeontology.

Permian ostracods, described from the Bonaparte Basin of northwestern Australia, for the first time, indicate a correlation to the Late Permian (Kazanian) of the East European Platform. The ostracods, associated in an offshore well with palynomorphs (studied by Clinton Foster, GA), indicate a marine environment, and provide a potential faunal tie for a specific palynomorph zone to the type Kazanian Stage. The results are in press in AAP Memoir 27.

Latest Devonian and Early Carboniferous paraparchitid ostracods from the Bonaparte Basin were described, and their biostratigraphic and palaeozoogeographic links established. Preliminary results were presented at the Geoff Playford Symposium, during the First International Palaeontological Congress (IPC 2002) Sydney, NSW (6-10 July, 2002); final results have been accepted for publication in the AAP Memoir series .

Peter continues as a corresponding member of the Subcommission on Carboniferous Stratigraphy of the International Stratigraphic Commission, International Union of Geological Sciences. As a co-author, he contributed to a paper by Manfred Menning (Potsdam) and others, that proposed a resolution to recent problems of nomenclature within the Carboniferous Period. In 2001, he provided taxonomic and palaeoecological advice to Darren Ferdinando, a PhD student (University of Western Australia) for his thesis on Early Permian ostracods from the Perth Basin. Results of two consulting contracts with Agip Australia Ltd, reviewing Late Devonian and Early Carboniferous biostratigraphy of the Bonaparte Basin, were prepared as three company reports in February and September 2002.

Keywords:- Crustacea; Ostracoda; Palaeozoic; global; Australia.

Name :-	Annette Mackintosh
Contact details:-	Ph: (02) 6125 4303
	Email: annette@geology.anu.edu.au

Report 2001-2002:- Annette recently completed an Honours degree at the University of Wollongong on the Shallow Marine Foraminifera of Lord Howe Island in the South Pacific, which was part of a larger project looking at carbonate sedimentation on the shelf surrounding the island with Brian Jones and David Kennedy. A summary of results of the project was published in the abstracts for IPC 2002. She has just started (September 2002) a Ph.D. study of the microbiota (specifically, interstital /stygofaunal ostracods) from groundwaters in the Pilbara, WA on a 3-year grant from CALM [Conservation of Land and Management based in WA] awarded to Patrick De Deckker. Her main focus is to address the lack of ecological information of groundwater fauna. She would appreciate any information about stygofaunal studies in Australia or overseas.

Keywords:- ostracods; stygofauna; foraminiferids; groundwater; Pilbara; microbiota; interstitial.

Name :-	Robert S. Nicoll (Visiting Fellow)
Contact details:-	Ph: work (02) 6125 4303; home (02) 6258-4140
	Email: bnicoll@goldweb.com.au

Report 2001-2002:- Bob Nicoll continues work on Ordovician through Triassic conodonts, especially on faunas from around the Permian-Triassic boundary in China and Permian faunas from the Canning Basin. A look at Ordovician and Silurian conodonts from the Carnarvon Basin, with Arthur Mory (GSWA) and Godfrey Nowlan (GSC), is also in progress.

Keywords:- conodonts; Cambrian - Triassic; thermal maturation; conodont biology.

Name :-	Laura Sbaffi (Visiting Fellow)
Contact details:-	Ph: (02) 6125 2070
	Email: laura@geology.anu.edu.au

Report 2001-2002:- Laura arrived at ANU from the University of East Anglia, UK, in March 2002. Originally from Italy, she received her Master's Degree in Geology from the University of Urbino in 1996, and her PhD Degree in Palaeoceanography from the University of Trieste in 2000, with a dissertation on the microfauna of the Mediterranean Sea and its use in palaeoclimatic reconstructions of the Late Quaternary. In March 2001, Laura started a research project with Mark Chapman at the University of East Anglia. While in England, she worked on millennial-scale climate variability of the last three glacial cycles in the subtropical North Atlantic Ocean through the study of planktic foraminifera associations, with particular focus on sea surface temperature (SST) reconstructions.

Laura is now working with Patrick De Deckker on the pteropod's (marine molluscs) response to climatic changes during the last 21,000 years in the southern Pacific Ocean, northwest of Australia. She is also working at Geoscience Australia with Clinton Foster on abnormal pollen from the Permian-Triassic.

Keywords:- micropalaeontology; palaeoceanography; pelagic environment; climate variability; climate forcing.

Name :-	Desmond Strusz
Contact details:-	Ph: (02) 6125 3776 work; (02) 6281 4569 home Fax: (02)6125 5544
	Email: dstrusz@geology.anu.edu.au

Report 2001-2002:- Des Strusz has continued his attack on the Silurian brachiopods from the Yass sequence. The first group tackled, previously completely unpublished, were the orthoids - that paper is now out, and includes a discussion of the age, biostratigraphy and ecostratigraphy of the sequence. A second paper, on the strophomenatans, has been returned to the editor after revision - little really new there, but a significant reduction in species compared with Mitchell's original work eighty years ago. Work has now started on a smaller but more difficult group, the pentameroids. First impression - nothing unknown, but systematics needs updating. Meanwhile, the fossils used previously to date the Mundoonen Sandstone, east of Yass, were reassessed in a joint paper with Lawrence Sherwin, and a paper with Tony Wright on a small graptolite-associated Wenlock brachiopod fauna from near Orange is in preparation.

Coral work is unfortunately now in abeyance, following Tim Munson's move to Darwin. However, Des continues to act as Australian correspondent for the Association for the Study of Fossil Cnidaria and Porifera (whose next meeting is in Graz in July 2003). He also remains a corresponding member of the Subcommission on Silurian Stratigraphy.

Keywords:- brachiopods; corals; Silurian; Devonian; systematics; biostratigraphy.

Name :-	Liz Truswell
Contact details:-	Ph: ((02) 6125 0619
	Email: liz.t@effect.net.au

Report 2001-2002:- Liz has had a busy couple of years, trying to mix science and an art practice. Palynological work has for the most part focussed on spore, pollen and dinoflagellate assemblages from the ODP drilling in Prydz Bay, East Antarctica. There, Site 1166 has provided a key to the Tertiary stratigraphy, and to the earliest evidence for glaciation on the Antarctic continent. Assemblages recovered from siltstones, with glacial dropstones, at this site enabled a Late Eocene age to be established for the onset of glaciation. Dinocysts provided the most effective age control. Pollen and spore assemblages suggested the presence of a terrestrial vegetation consisting of 'rainforest scrub', with dominant Nothofagus and conifers, and an understorey impoverished in ferns and other angiosperms.

With Mike Macphail, Liz has completed two chapters on the palynology of the drilled sites for inclusion in the ODP Scientific Report. One deals with Site 1166, the other with combined results from Sites 1165 and 1167, where the sequences are of Neogene age and most palynomorphs recycled. The pollen suites at Site 1166 also yielded sparse pollen representing the insectivorous family Droseraceae, and Liz and Mike have completed a paper on this - the first report of the family from Antarctica. The work was presented at the Geoffrey Playford Symposium during the International Palaeontological Congress in Sydney, and is in press in the proceedings volume of that meeting.

On the art side, a large (4m long) drawing, based on an impression of Antarctic vegetation, and using recycled scientific text with a charcoal overlay, was 'unveiled' in a ceremony in the foyer of the geology dept at ANU in June. Another set of 10 drawings, based on the landscapes evoked by old mine dumps at Captains Flat, was exhibited in October as part of the exhibition, 'Factor of Ten' at the ANU in October.

Liz has remained much involved with the Advisory Board for the Cooperative Research Centre for Coastal Zone, Estuary and Waterway Management, which is headquartered in Brisbane. This involvement has meant board meetings in Brisbane, and attendance at the annual workshop of the CRC in Noosa in September, where the initiation of new projects for the second half of the CRC was the major issue. In October Liz attended a meeting in Gladstone - 'Focus on Port Curtis', and presented the keynote address, entitled 'A sense of place' - drawing its inspiration from George Seddon's writings on Australian landscape.

In the belief that we must share our research with as wide a section of the community as possible, talks have been presented this year in Canberra to the Society for Growing Australian Plants, to the Independent Scholars Association of Australia, to the Lake George Festival, as well as to audiences in the Geology Department at ANU.

Keywords:- palynology; Antarctica; Eocene; insectivorous plants.

Name :-	Natalie Sinclair
Contact details:-	Ph: (02) 6125 9413
	Email: Natalie.Sinclair@ga.gov.au

Report 2001-2002:- Natalie completed her Honours thesis on Middle to Late Triassic palynology, stratigraphy and environment of deposition of the Challis Oil Field, Northwest Shelf, Australia, last year, under the co-supervision of Clinton Foster (GA) and Jonathan Clarke. She was awarded one of the 7 Graduate School Scholarships funded by the ANU Endowment for Excellence this year, and has commenced work for the PhD degree. Her research will be on Cretaceous palynology of the Otway Basin, under the joint supervision of Eric Monteil (GA), Woodside Petroleum, and Patrick De Deckker.

Keywords:- palynology; Triassic Northwest Shelf; Cretaceous Otway Basin.