About This Item

Share This Item

The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Bulletin

Abstract


Volume: 46 (1962)

Issue: 2. (February)

First Page: 280

Last Page: 281

Title: Middle Tertiary Vertebrate Fauna from Australia: ABSTRACT

Author(s): R. A. Stirton

Article Type: Meeting abstract

Abstract:

A middle Tertiary vertebrate fauna has been discovered in the Great Artesian Basin east of Lake Eyre, South Australia. The fossils occur in the Etadunna Formation and have been called the Ngapakaldi fauna. The Etadunna Formation (? Oligocene), consists of more than 100 feet of green lacustrine claystone, sandstone

End_Page 280------------------------------

calcareous mudstone, and dolomitic limestone. In the basin there is a thick subsurface section of earlier Tertiary sedimentary rock, whereas in the surface exposures the Etadunna is dissected in places by the fossiliferous Mampuwordu Sands (? Pliocene), which in turn are truncated by the unfossiliferous red beds of the Tirari Formation. Cutting deeply into the Tirari are the fluviatile fossiliferous Katipiri Sands (Pleistocene).

Ngapakaldi fauna. MOLLUSCA: gastropods. ANTHROPODA: ostracodes. OSTEICHTHYES: lung fish, teleosts. REPTILIA: chelonians--including a ? meiolanid, crocodileans, varanid lizards. AVES: pelicans, flamingos, ducks, cranes, thick-knees, and a gull or tern. MARSUPIALIA: two dasyurids, Perikoala, rat-kangaroo, a primitive kangaroo, thylacoleo-like animal and a primitive diprotodontid.

End_of_Article - Last_Page 281------------

Copyright 1997 American Association of Petroleum Geologists