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Selected Works

2014

GeoQUEST

Articles 1 - 15 of 15

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Evidence Of Enso Mega-Drought Triggered Collapse Of Prehistory Aboriginal Society In Northwest Australia, Hamish Mcgowan, Samuel K. Marx, P Moss, Andrew Hammond Aug 2014

Evidence Of Enso Mega-Drought Triggered Collapse Of Prehistory Aboriginal Society In Northwest Australia, Hamish Mcgowan, Samuel K. Marx, P Moss, Andrew Hammond

Samuel K Marx

The Kimberley region of northwest Australia contains one of the World's largest collections of rock art characterised by two distinct art forms; the fine featured anthropomorphic figures of the Gwion Gwion or Bradshaw paintings, and broad stroke Wandjina figures. Luminescence dating of mud wasp nests overlying Gwion Gwion paintings has confirmed an age of at least 17,000 yrs B.P. with the most recent dates for these paintings from around the mid-Holocene (5000 to 7000 yrs B.P.). Radiocarbon dating indicates that the Wandjina rock art then emerged around 3800 to 4000 yrs B.P. following a hiatus of at least 1200 yrs. …


Dust Transport And Deposition In A Superhumid Environment, Samuel K. Marx, Hamish A. Mcgowan Aug 2014

Dust Transport And Deposition In A Superhumid Environment, Samuel K. Marx, Hamish A. Mcgowan

Samuel K Marx

Contemporary rates of dust deposition monitored along a 300-km section of the superhumid West Coast of New Zealand's South Island are presented. In this setting, dust is entrained primarily from the dry channels of braided glaciofluvial rivers that drain the western slopes of the Southern Alps. Measured dust deposition ranged between 0.21 and 118.9 kg-1 ha -1 month-1, which is similar to dust deposition rates monitored in arid and semiarid environments. However, these are not considered to be sufficient for present day loess genesis. Dust deposition was highest in summer because of the greater frequency of favourable dust transporting winds, …


Evidence Of Solar And Tropical-Ocean Forcing Of Hydroclimate Cycles In Southeastern Australia For The Past 6500 Years, Hamish A. Mcgowan, Samuel K. Marx, Joshua Soderholm, John Denholm Aug 2014

Evidence Of Solar And Tropical-Ocean Forcing Of Hydroclimate Cycles In Southeastern Australia For The Past 6500 Years, Hamish A. Mcgowan, Samuel K. Marx, Joshua Soderholm, John Denholm

Samuel K Marx

Evidence of solar and tropical‐ocean forcing of climate cycles has been found in numerous palaeoclimate records. Numerical modelling studies show physical mechanisms by which direct and indirect solar forcing may affect climate, while there is mounting evidence of solar forcing of tropical ocean‐atmosphere teleconnections. This study has developed a 6500 year record of dust deposition, a proxy for regional hydroclimate variability for the Snowy Mountains region of Australia. Spectral analysis of the record provides evidence of statistically significant cycles in dust deposition of 35–43 years, 62–73 years, 161 years and 2200 years. These correlate with variability in solar irradiance and …


New Data On Occurrences Of The Devonian Rugose Coral Calceola In Belgium, Anthony J. Wright, M Coen-Aubert, P Bultynck, A P. Van Viersen Apr 2014

New Data On Occurrences Of The Devonian Rugose Coral Calceola In Belgium, Anthony J. Wright, M Coen-Aubert, P Bultynck, A P. Van Viersen

Anthony Wright

Opercula and corallites of Calceola sandalina from the late Eifelian and early Givetian (Middle Devonian) Hanonet Formation of Belgium are illustrated. The few previous illustrations of calceoloid corals from the Devonian of Belgium did not include opercula showing the generically diagnostic morphological features, so for the first time the presence of the genus and species in Belgium is confirmed. One important corallite shows the alar septum and insertion of septa on the external surface of the counter face adjacent to the alar septum.


Late Llandovery (Early Silurian) Dendroid Graptolites From The Cotton Formation Near Forbes, New South Wales, R B. Rickards, Anthony J. Wright, G Thomas Apr 2014

Late Llandovery (Early Silurian) Dendroid Graptolites From The Cotton Formation Near Forbes, New South Wales, R B. Rickards, Anthony J. Wright, G Thomas

Anthony Wright

A well-preserved dendroid graptolite fauna of Early Silurian (late Llandovery: probable turriculatus graptolite zone) age is described from the Cotton Formation near Forbes, New South Wales. A possible rhabdopleuran hemichordate is described from Australia for the fi rst time. The fauna consists of 13 taxa as follows: Dendrograptus sp. aff. D. avonleaensis, Dictyonema zalasiewiczi sp. nov., Dictyonema sp. aff. D. paululum australis, Dictyonema paululum australis, Dictyonema sp. aff. D. sp. cf. D. venustus of Bulman (?ssp. nov.), Dictyonema venustum, Dictyonema sp. cf. D. falciferum, Callograptus bridgecreekensis, Callograptus rigbyae, Callograptus sp. aff. C. ulahensis, Stelechocladia sp. cf. S. praeattenuata, Acanthograptus praedeckeri …


Phylum Arthropoda, Subphylum Trilobitomorpha: Trilobites, Anthony J. Wright, Roger A. Cooper Apr 2014

Phylum Arthropoda, Subphylum Trilobitomorpha: Trilobites, Anthony J. Wright, Roger A. Cooper

Anthony Wright

This volume is the second of three that provide a complete review and inventory of New Zealand's entire living and fossil biodiversity - an international effort involving more than 220 New Zealand and overseas specialists and the most comprehensive of its kind in the world. Together, the three volumes will list every one of the almost 55,000 known species of New Zealand's animals, plants, fungi and micro-organisms. Volume 2 mostly deals with the major branch of the animal kingdom known as Ecdysozoa (moulting animals), which includes arachnids, centipedes and millipedes, crustaceans and insects. It also includes the enigmatic phylum Chaetognatha …


Emsian (Early Devonian) Tetracorals (Cnidaria) From Grattai Creek, New South Wales, Anthony Wright Apr 2014

Emsian (Early Devonian) Tetracorals (Cnidaria) From Grattai Creek, New South Wales, Anthony Wright

Anthony Wright

The tetracoral species Phillipsastrea scotti sp. nov. and Trapezophyllum grattaiensis sp. nov. are described from strata assigned to the middle Emsian (nothoperbonus to inversus conodont zones: Early Devonian) part of the Cunningham Formation at Grattai Creek, west of Mudgee, N.S.W. For comparison with the former, Phillipsastrea oculoides, from the Early Devonian (late Pragian or early Emsian) Garra Formation in the Wellington area of N.S.W., is revised on the basis of the type material; new longitudinal thin sections show indisputable horseshoe dissepiments and trabecular fans in this species.


Recent Discoveries And A Review Of The Ordovician Faunas Of New Zealand, Ian Percival, Roger Cooper, Yong Yi Zhen, J Simes, Anthony Wright Apr 2014

Recent Discoveries And A Review Of The Ordovician Faunas Of New Zealand, Ian Percival, Roger Cooper, Yong Yi Zhen, J Simes, Anthony Wright

Anthony Wright

Fossiliferous Ordovician rocks are of limited extent in New Zealand, being largely restricted to northwest Nelson and Westland in the northern part of the South Island, with some isolated exposures at the southern extremity of Fiordland (Fig. 1). The known stratigraphic record, though incomplete, covers much of the period, and new information from study and revision of old collections (mostly dating from the 1960s and 1970s) continues to fill in the gaps. These data are critical to a better understanding of New Zealand’s place in the Ordovician world, when it occupied an isolated position facing the palaeo-Pacific Ocean offshore to …


Martellia And Associated Middle Ordovician Brachiopods From The Katkoyeh Formation, East-Central Iran, Ian G. Percival, Anthony J. Wright, Robert S. Nicoll, Mir Alireza Hamedi Apr 2014

Martellia And Associated Middle Ordovician Brachiopods From The Katkoyeh Formation, East-Central Iran, Ian G. Percival, Anthony J. Wright, Robert S. Nicoll, Mir Alireza Hamedi

Anthony Wright

The palaeontology and stratigraphy of the Ordovician if Iran has been the subject of considerable research over the past 15 years, revealing biogeographically significant faunas whose affinities are shared both with peri-Gondwanian terranes and continental blocks. Documentation of the composition and ages of these faunas, many of which are still poorly known, is critical to constraining palaeogeographic reconstructions of the time.


Septal Architecture And Palaeoecology Of Calceola (Cnidaria, Calceolidae), With Comments On The Phylogeny Of Devonian Operculate Tetracorals, Anthony J. Wright Apr 2014

Septal Architecture And Palaeoecology Of Calceola (Cnidaria, Calceolidae), With Comments On The Phylogeny Of Devonian Operculate Tetracorals, Anthony J. Wright

Anthony Wright

In Calceola sandalina the full complement of counter major septa was established very low in the calyx, extending from the counter septum across to the edge of the counter face. At about mid-height of the calyx, a counter-lateral major septum was generated on either side of and from the counter septum. Serial minor septal insertion was initiated adjacent to the counter-lateral septa at a slightly later stage and continued throughout the subsequent ontogeny of the corallite, with minor septa (schizosepta?) arising on the median side of major septa and bifurcating from them. Alar fossulae are seen in the calyx of …


New Genera Of Early Devonian Calceoloid Corals From Australia And France, Anthony Wright Apr 2014

New Genera Of Early Devonian Calceoloid Corals From Australia And France, Anthony Wright

Anthony Wright

Two new Early Devonian genera and species of the family Calceolidae, phylum Cnidaria, are erected; these are Richtereola disruptus n. gen., n. sp., from the Emsian (perbonus conodont zone) of the Taemas area, NSW, Australia and from the Emsian Izarne Formation (gronbergi conodont zone) of the Montagne Noire, southern France; and Savageola unicus n. gen., n. sp. from the Lochkovian (eurekaensis conodont zone) Mandagery Park Formation at Manildra, NSW, Australia. These taxa are essentially defined on opercular characters; well-preserved opercula are essential for confident generic assignment of calceoloid material. Savageola is known only from eastern Australia, but Richtereola is known …


The Asaphid Trilobite Ogygites Collingwoodensis Reed, 1926 From The Late Ordovician Of New Zealand, Anthony J. Wright Apr 2014

The Asaphid Trilobite Ogygites Collingwoodensis Reed, 1926 From The Late Ordovician Of New Zealand, Anthony J. Wright

Anthony Wright

The New Zealand asaphid trilobite Ogygites collingwoodensis is redescribed on the basis of the type material and new collections, and its assignment to Basiliella is confirmed. The species occurs with the trinucleid trilobite Incaia bishopi and graptolites indicative of the Nemagraptus gracilis zone (early Late Ordovician, early Sandbian/Gisbornian), mostly as disarticulated material in intensely bioturbated siltstone of the Douglas Formation. Comparison with coeval faunas is limited due to the low diversity of this fauna, but B. collingwoodensis shows some limited similarity to contemporaneous eastern Australian faunas, whereas Incaia also occurs in South America and South China.


Stratigraphic Distribution And Suggested Evolution Of Dendroid Graptolites From The Silurian Of Eastern Australia, Barrie Rickards, Anthony Wright Apr 2014

Stratigraphic Distribution And Suggested Evolution Of Dendroid Graptolites From The Silurian Of Eastern Australia, Barrie Rickards, Anthony Wright

Anthony Wright

Five evolutionary lineages are proposed for Silurian species of the benthic dendroid graptolite genus Dictyonema, based largely on the exceptional eastern Australian records of the genus, comprising at least 25 species. These are: A, the delicatulum lineage with bifurcating ventral autothecal apertural spines; B, the paululum lineage with single ventral apertural spines or processes; C, the elegans lineage with isolated thecal apertures ± processes; D, the sherrardae lineage with dorsal apertural processes; and E, the venustum lineage with simple autothecal apertures. Brief comments are also made on other dendroid genera occurring in Australian strata, namely: Acanthograptus, Koremagraptus, Callograptus, Dendrograptus, Stelechocladia, …


Darriwilian (Middle Ordovician) Conodonts From Thompson Creek, Nelson Province, New Zealand, Yong Yi Zhen, Ian G. Percival, Roger A. Cooper, John E. Simes, Anthony J. Wright Apr 2014

Darriwilian (Middle Ordovician) Conodonts From Thompson Creek, Nelson Province, New Zealand, Yong Yi Zhen, Ian G. Percival, Roger A. Cooper, John E. Simes, Anthony J. Wright

Anthony Wright

A well preserved Middle Ordovician conodont fauna of 24 species has been recovered from seven samples of a small limestone lens exposed in Thompson Creek, northwest of Nelson, on the South Island of New Zealand. The presence of Histiodella holodentata, Baltoniodus? sp., Paroistodus originalis, P. horridus, Periodon macrodentatus, Protopanderodus sp. cf. P. varicostatus, Costiconus ethingtoni and Venoistodus balticus in the fauna indicates a Darriwilian (late Da2 to mid Da3) age. The occurrence of Ansella jemtlandica, Baltoniodus? sp., Periodon macrodentatus, Spinodus sp., Spinodus? sp. and Histiodella holodentata suggests a relatively deeper water (outer shelf to slope) setting, comparable with contemporaneous faunas, …


Middle Ordovician (Darriwilian) Brachiopods And Trilobites From Thompson Creek, Northwest Nelson, New Zealand, Ian G. Percival, Anthony J. Wright, Roger A. Cooper, John E. Simes, Yong Yi Zhen Apr 2014

Middle Ordovician (Darriwilian) Brachiopods And Trilobites From Thompson Creek, Northwest Nelson, New Zealand, Ian G. Percival, Anthony J. Wright, Roger A. Cooper, John E. Simes, Yong Yi Zhen

Anthony Wright

A well preserved Middle Ordovician shelly fauna, represented by twelve species of lingulate brachiopods and one trilobite genus, was recovered from an allochthonous limestone lens exposed in Thompson Creek, northwest of Nelson, on the South Island of New Zealand. The stratigraphic setting is unclear as the limestone is situated in the Takaka Terrane adjacent to the Anatoki Fault, separating this terrane from the Buller Terrane. The original depositional environment of the limestone is interpreted as relatively deep water (outer shelf to upper slope). Lingulate brachiopods described include the new species Hyperobolus? thompsonensis sp. nov., Cyrtonotreta robusta sp. nov., Scaphelasma paturauensis …