IGCP 506 NATIONAL REPORT 2008
AUSTRALIAN WORKING GROUP
1. The major symposium attended this year was at the 33rd IGC organised by Dr Vivi
Vajda.
2. Members of the Australian working group have finalised a review of the Jurassic
marine-non.marine.
3. see news and publications below (emails can be sent if you wish).
Dr Susan Turner (nat. correspondent) ~Geoscience Consultant, Monash University
Geosciences Hon Snr RA
She attended the 33rd IGC with the help of an Australian IGCP Committee Grant-in-Aid
grant and from the IGC Geohost scheme. She co-chaired the IGCP 506 day symposium
with Professor Sha Jingeng (see Vajda report to Episodes in press) and gave a talk
(Turner 2008) on the use of Jurassic fish remains for marine-non-marine correlation.
With colleagues in the Australian working group she has submitted a review of the
Jurassic of Australia to the resultant IGCP 506 symposium volume to be published as a
special issue of GFF. With Dr Vivi Vajda (Univ. Lund) who convened the IGC
Symposium, she is editing the papers for the special volume, due out in mid-2009.
Dr John Backhouse, GSWA
has supported the review by offering data and unpublished material. See publication
below on East Timor.
Dr Mary Dettmann, Queenland Museum, Honorary Researcher
and is a co-author of the Jurassic review.
Dr John McKeller with Dr Noel de Jersey, GSQ Qld
and is a co-author of the Jurassic review. He has one long review monograph in the
pipeline discussing microfloras including the Alisporites/Falcisporites Microflora,
representative of the temperate Dicroidium Flora, to palynofloras dominated by
cheirolepidiacen pollen (Classopollis), highlighting the development, assumptively in
somewhat lower palaeolatitudes, of a warmer climate and representing the early
development of the Jurassic flora of the region.
A new cross-Tasman palynostratigraphic compilation has been developed (by de
Jersey & JMcK) embracing work on accurate location of the Triassic-Jurassic (Rhaetian-
Hettangian) and Hettangian-Sinemurian boundaries in continental eastern Australia; the
results based on correlation with the marine, ammonite-dated succession in New Zealand,
then part of Greater Eastern Australia.
Another major paper (NDJ & Ian Raine), on Early and Middle Jurassic spore-pollen
assemblages of New Zealand (again accurately dated by associated marine invertebrate
fossils) and their biostratigraphic relationships with palynofloras from continental eastern
Australia, is in train.
Dr Stephen McLoughlin, Department of Paleobotany, Swedish Museum of Natural
has completed projects on the Jurassic flora of Australia (see publications) and is a co-
author of the Jurassic review.
Dr Mike Pole, Queensland Herbarium, Toowong: murihiku@yahoo.com
submitted a paper to the GFF volume on the Jurassic vegetation of New Zealand.
Geoscience Australia
Ph.D. research on Australian Jurassic palynofloras aimed at refining the Australian
standard dinocyst biozonation scheme (Wanaea spectabilis Zone) to provide high-
resolution age and facies controls on strata intersected by hydrocarbon exploration wells.
Integration of this data with seismic and downhole petrophysical data is providing
improved sequence and systems-tract interpretations. Work in train by Natalie Sinclair,
(ANU, GA, ExxonMobil & ChevronTexaco material; pers. comm.) is on the Upper
Jurassic in the Jansz Gas Field, on the Exmouth Plateau of the offshore Northern
Carnarvon Basin (North West Shelf).
Other doctoral research (Mantle 2006) to be published in the future comprises
palynomorph diversity and abundance in assemblages with marine (dinocysts and
acritarchs) and terrestrial (spores and pollen) and covers palynology, sequence
stratigraphy and palaeoenvironments of Middle to Late Jurassic strata of the Bayu-Undan
Field, Timor Sea (Daniel Mantle pers. comm.).
Other news
Dr Phil Cummins, A/Prof. Myra Keep (University of Western Australia) and Prof. B.L.
Kennett (ANU) have been studying the latest Jurassic history of the Exmouth Sub-basin,
NW Shelf of WA especially the low-stand deposits of the basal Barrow Group (an
important source rock) with an ARC grant (2005-2007) and APA(1) Partner award with
Woodside Petroleum. They were looking for evidence of large seismic events in NW
Australia (two of the largest were magnitude 7.9 in 1906 and 7 in 1941), examining
seismograph data and onshore and offshore fault to determine regional stress and
implications for petroleum upstream and production, especially to see if resource
extraction causes local seismicity. More info from: Professor Brian Kennett, Director
ANSIR at the Research School of Earth Sciences, ANU; Email: ANSIR@anu.edu.au
Keep and Assoc. Prof. David Haig have been working on the geological and
tectonic evolution in East Timor since 2003, looking closely at the structural relationships
and re-mapping and re-dating the formations, with a view to constraining and formulating
models for tectonic evolution. Exciting discoveries to date include the type section of the
Miocene is in fact largely Triassic to Jurassic; the type section of the Jurassic is Triassic;
there is a large section of ocean floor material, complete with MORBS and cumulates, the
remnants of a collided oceanic plateau, complete with OIBs, preserved as thrust stacks
along strike across the island. See
www.socrates.uwa.edu.au/Staff/StaffProfile.aspx?Person=myrakeep
Publications of interest:
Gallagher, S.M., Wood, G.R. & Lemon, N.L., 2008: Birkhead Formation chronostratigraphy on the Murteree Horst, South Australia: identifying and correlating
reservoirs and seals. In: Blevin, J.E., Bradshaw, B.E. & Uruski, C. (eds), Eastern
Australasian Basins Symposium III. Petroleum Exploration Society of Australia, Special
Publication, 169-189.
Haig, D.W., McCartain, E., Barber, L. & Backhouse, J., 2007: Triassic-Lower Jurassic
foraminiferal indices for Bahamian-type carbonate-bank limestones, Cablac
Mountain, East Timor. Journal of Foraminiferal Research 37, 248-264.
Jansson, I.-M., McLoughlin, S., Vajda, V. & Pole M., 2008. An Early Jurassic flora from
the Clarence-Moreton Basin, Australia. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 150: 5-
21.
Jansson, I.-M., McLoughlin, S. & Vajda, V., 2008. Early Jurassic annelid cocoons from
eastern Australia. Alcheringa 32: 285-296.
In press
McKellar, J.L. in press. Late Early to Late Jurassic palynology, biostratigraphy and
palaeogeography of the Roma Shelf area, northwestern Surat Basin, Queensland,
Australia. Association of Australasian Palaeontologists Memoir
McLoughlin, S. & Pott, C., in press: The Jurassic flora of Western Australia. GFF XX,
XXX-XXX.
Pole, M. in press. Vegetation and climate of the New Zealand Jurassic. GFF, Vol. 1XX
(Pt. x, month), pp. xxx–xxx. Stockholm. ISSN 1103-5897.
Turner, S., Bean, L.B., Dettmann, M., McKellar, J., McLoughlin, S. & Thulborn, T. in
press. Australian Jurassic sedimentary and fossil successions: current work and future
prospects for marine and non-marine correlation. GFF xx, xxx-xxx.
Vajda, V. in press. Jurassic—Climate and Biodiversity: The 6th international IGCP 506
Symposium, held at the International Geological Congress (IGC33) in Oslo, Norway,
followed by the excursion ‘Mesozoic of Scandinavia’. Norway, Sweden and Denmark,
August 6–18, 2008. Episodes, 2 pp.
Abstract
McLoughlin, S. 2008. The fossil record of seed ferns in Australia. IPC-XII/IOP-VIII
Bonn, Germany, 2008, Abstracts Volume. Terra Nostra 2008/2, p. 186 (abstract).
Turner S IGCP 506 Jurassic fish for marine - non-marine correlation. In 33rd IGC Oslo,
Aug 6-14 2008, Abstracts volume, 1p.
Unpublished thesis
Mantle, D., 2006: Palynology, sequence stratigraphy, and palaeoenvironments of Middle to
Late Jurassic strata, Bayu-Undan Field, Timor Sea region. Ph.D. thesis, The University of
Queensland.
Others of interest
Bromfield, K., Burrett, C.F., Leslie, R.A. & Meffre, S., 2007: Jurassic volcaniclastic-
basaltic andesite-dolerite sequence in Tasmania: New age constraints for fossil plants
from Lune River. Australian Journal of Earth Sciences 54, 965-974.
Hikuroa, D. & Grant-Mackie, J., 2008. New species of Late Jurassic Australobuchia
(Bivalvia) from the Murihiku Terrane, Port Waikato-Kawhia region, New Zealand.
Alcheringa 32, 73-98.
Monteil, E. (coord.), 2006: Australian Mesozoic and Cenozoic Palynology Zonations -
updated to the 2004 Geologic Time Scale. Geoscience Australia Record 2006/23, (on
CD-ROM)
Partridge, A.D., 2006a: Jurassic-Early Cretaceous dinocyst zonations NWS Australia: 1st
update of HMP 2004. In E. Monteil, (coord.): Australian Mesozoic and Cenozoic
Palynology Zonations - updated to the 2004 Geologic Time Scale. Geoscience
Australia Record 2006/23. (on CD-ROM)
Partridge, A.D., 2006b: Jurassic-Early Cretaceous spore-pollen and dinocyst zonations
for Australia. In E. Monteil, (coord.): Australian Mesozoic and Cenozoic Palynology
Zonations - updated to the 2004 Geologic Time Scale. Geoscience Australia Record
2006/23. (on CD-ROM)
Partridge, A.D., 2006c: Late Cretaceous palynology zonations for Australia. In E.
Monteil, (coord.): Australian Mesozoic and Cenozoic Palynology Zonations - updated
to the 2004 Geologic Time Scale. Geoscience Australia Record 2006/23. (on CD-
ROM)
Partridge, A.D., 2006d: Late Cretaceous-Cenozoic palynology zonations Gippsland
Basin. In E. Monteil, (coord.): Australian Mesozoic and Cenozoic Palynology
Zonations - updated to the 2004 Geologic Time Scale. Geoscience Australia Record
2006/23. (on CD-ROM)
Pole, M., 2008. The record of Araucariaceae macrofossils in New Zealand. Alcheringa
32, 405-426.
AUSTRALIAN WORKING GROUP
1. The major symposium attended this year was at the 33rd IGC organised by Dr Vivi
Vajda.
2. Members of the Australian working group have finalised a review of the Jurassic
marine-non.marine.
3. see news and publications below (emails can be sent if you wish).
Dr Susan Turner (nat. correspondent) ~Geoscience Consultant, Monash University
Geosciences Hon Snr RA
She attended the 33rd IGC with the help of an Australian IGCP Committee Grant-in-Aid
grant and from the IGC Geohost scheme. She co-chaired the IGCP 506 day symposium
with Professor Sha Jingeng (see Vajda report to Episodes in press) and gave a talk
(Turner 2008) on the use of Jurassic fish remains for marine-non-marine correlation.
With colleagues in the Australian working group she has submitted a review of the
Jurassic of Australia to the resultant IGCP 506 symposium volume to be published as a
special issue of GFF. With Dr Vivi Vajda (Univ. Lund) who convened the IGC
Symposium, she is editing the papers for the special volume, due out in mid-2009.
Dr John Backhouse, GSWA
has supported the review by offering data and unpublished material. See publication
below on East Timor.
Dr Mary Dettmann, Queenland Museum, Honorary Researcher
and is a co-author of the Jurassic review.
Dr John McKeller with Dr Noel de Jersey, GSQ Qld
and is a co-author of the Jurassic review. He has one long review monograph in the
pipeline discussing microfloras including the Alisporites/Falcisporites Microflora,
representative of the temperate Dicroidium Flora, to palynofloras dominated by
cheirolepidiacen pollen (Classopollis), highlighting the development, assumptively in
somewhat lower palaeolatitudes, of a warmer climate and representing the early
development of the Jurassic flora of the region.
A new cross-Tasman palynostratigraphic compilation has been developed (by de
Jersey & JMcK) embracing work on accurate location of the Triassic-Jurassic (Rhaetian-
Hettangian) and Hettangian-Sinemurian boundaries in continental eastern Australia; the
results based on correlation with the marine, ammonite-dated succession in New Zealand,
then part of Greater Eastern Australia.
Another major paper (NDJ & Ian Raine), on Early and Middle Jurassic spore-pollen
assemblages of New Zealand (again accurately dated by associated marine invertebrate
fossils) and their biostratigraphic relationships with palynofloras from continental eastern
Australia, is in train.
Dr Stephen McLoughlin, Department of Paleobotany, Swedish Museum of Natural
has completed projects on the Jurassic flora of Australia (see publications) and is a co-
author of the Jurassic review.
Dr Mike Pole, Queensland Herbarium, Toowong: murihiku@yahoo.com
submitted a paper to the GFF volume on the Jurassic vegetation of New Zealand.
Geoscience Australia
Ph.D. research on Australian Jurassic palynofloras aimed at refining the Australian
standard dinocyst biozonation scheme (Wanaea spectabilis Zone) to provide high-
resolution age and facies controls on strata intersected by hydrocarbon exploration wells.
Integration of this data with seismic and downhole petrophysical data is providing
improved sequence and systems-tract interpretations. Work in train by Natalie Sinclair,
(ANU, GA, ExxonMobil & ChevronTexaco material; pers. comm.) is on the Upper
Jurassic in the Jansz Gas Field, on the Exmouth Plateau of the offshore Northern
Carnarvon Basin (North West Shelf).
Other doctoral research (Mantle 2006) to be published in the future comprises
palynomorph diversity and abundance in assemblages with marine (dinocysts and
acritarchs) and terrestrial (spores and pollen) and covers palynology, sequence
stratigraphy and palaeoenvironments of Middle to Late Jurassic strata of the Bayu-Undan
Field, Timor Sea (Daniel Mantle pers. comm.).
Other news
Dr Phil Cummins, A/Prof. Myra Keep (University of Western Australia) and Prof. B.L.
Kennett (ANU) have been studying the latest Jurassic history of the Exmouth Sub-basin,
NW Shelf of WA especially the low-stand deposits of the basal Barrow Group (an
important source rock) with an ARC grant (2005-2007) and APA(1) Partner award with
Woodside Petroleum. They were looking for evidence of large seismic events in NW
Australia (two of the largest were magnitude 7.9 in 1906 and 7 in 1941), examining
seismograph data and onshore and offshore fault to determine regional stress and
implications for petroleum upstream and production, especially to see if resource
extraction causes local seismicity. More info from: Professor Brian Kennett, Director
ANSIR at the Research School of Earth Sciences, ANU; Email: ANSIR@anu.edu.au
Keep and Assoc. Prof. David Haig have been working on the geological and
tectonic evolution in East Timor since 2003, looking closely at the structural relationships
and re-mapping and re-dating the formations, with a view to constraining and formulating
models for tectonic evolution. Exciting discoveries to date include the type section of the
Miocene is in fact largely Triassic to Jurassic; the type section of the Jurassic is Triassic;
there is a large section of ocean floor material, complete with MORBS and cumulates, the
remnants of a collided oceanic plateau, complete with OIBs, preserved as thrust stacks
along strike across the island. See
www.socrates.uwa.edu.au/Staff/StaffProfile.aspx?Person=myrakeep
Publications of interest:
Gallagher, S.M., Wood, G.R. & Lemon, N.L., 2008: Birkhead Formation chronostratigraphy on the Murteree Horst, South Australia: identifying and correlating
reservoirs and seals. In: Blevin, J.E., Bradshaw, B.E. & Uruski, C. (eds), Eastern
Australasian Basins Symposium III. Petroleum Exploration Society of Australia, Special
Publication, 169-189.
Haig, D.W., McCartain, E., Barber, L. & Backhouse, J., 2007: Triassic-Lower Jurassic
foraminiferal indices for Bahamian-type carbonate-bank limestones, Cablac
Mountain, East Timor. Journal of Foraminiferal Research 37, 248-264.
Jansson, I.-M., McLoughlin, S., Vajda, V. & Pole M., 2008. An Early Jurassic flora from
the Clarence-Moreton Basin, Australia. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 150: 5-
21.
Jansson, I.-M., McLoughlin, S. & Vajda, V., 2008. Early Jurassic annelid cocoons from
eastern Australia. Alcheringa 32: 285-296.
In press
McKellar, J.L. in press. Late Early to Late Jurassic palynology, biostratigraphy and
palaeogeography of the Roma Shelf area, northwestern Surat Basin, Queensland,
Australia. Association of Australasian Palaeontologists Memoir
McLoughlin, S. & Pott, C., in press: The Jurassic flora of Western Australia. GFF XX,
XXX-XXX.
Pole, M. in press. Vegetation and climate of the New Zealand Jurassic. GFF, Vol. 1XX
(Pt. x, month), pp. xxx–xxx. Stockholm. ISSN 1103-5897.
Turner, S., Bean, L.B., Dettmann, M., McKellar, J., McLoughlin, S. & Thulborn, T. in
press. Australian Jurassic sedimentary and fossil successions: current work and future
prospects for marine and non-marine correlation. GFF xx, xxx-xxx.
Vajda, V. in press. Jurassic—Climate and Biodiversity: The 6th international IGCP 506
Symposium, held at the International Geological Congress (IGC33) in Oslo, Norway,
followed by the excursion ‘Mesozoic of Scandinavia’. Norway, Sweden and Denmark,
August 6–18, 2008. Episodes, 2 pp.
Abstract
McLoughlin, S. 2008. The fossil record of seed ferns in Australia. IPC-XII/IOP-VIII
Bonn, Germany, 2008, Abstracts Volume. Terra Nostra 2008/2, p. 186 (abstract).
Turner S IGCP 506 Jurassic fish for marine - non-marine correlation. In 33rd IGC Oslo,
Aug 6-14 2008, Abstracts volume, 1p.
Unpublished thesis
Mantle, D., 2006: Palynology, sequence stratigraphy, and palaeoenvironments of Middle to
Late Jurassic strata, Bayu-Undan Field, Timor Sea region. Ph.D. thesis, The University of
Queensland.
Others of interest
Bromfield, K., Burrett, C.F., Leslie, R.A. & Meffre, S., 2007: Jurassic volcaniclastic-
basaltic andesite-dolerite sequence in Tasmania: New age constraints for fossil plants
from Lune River. Australian Journal of Earth Sciences 54, 965-974.
Hikuroa, D. & Grant-Mackie, J., 2008. New species of Late Jurassic Australobuchia
(Bivalvia) from the Murihiku Terrane, Port Waikato-Kawhia region, New Zealand.
Alcheringa 32, 73-98.
Monteil, E. (coord.), 2006: Australian Mesozoic and Cenozoic Palynology Zonations -
updated to the 2004 Geologic Time Scale. Geoscience Australia Record 2006/23, (on
CD-ROM)
Partridge, A.D., 2006a: Jurassic-Early Cretaceous dinocyst zonations NWS Australia: 1st
update of HMP 2004. In E. Monteil, (coord.): Australian Mesozoic and Cenozoic
Palynology Zonations - updated to the 2004 Geologic Time Scale. Geoscience
Australia Record 2006/23. (on CD-ROM)
Partridge, A.D., 2006b: Jurassic-Early Cretaceous spore-pollen and dinocyst zonations
for Australia. In E. Monteil, (coord.): Australian Mesozoic and Cenozoic Palynology
Zonations - updated to the 2004 Geologic Time Scale. Geoscience Australia Record
2006/23. (on CD-ROM)
Partridge, A.D., 2006c: Late Cretaceous palynology zonations for Australia. In E.
Monteil, (coord.): Australian Mesozoic and Cenozoic Palynology Zonations - updated
to the 2004 Geologic Time Scale. Geoscience Australia Record 2006/23. (on CD-
ROM)
Partridge, A.D., 2006d: Late Cretaceous-Cenozoic palynology zonations Gippsland
Basin. In E. Monteil, (coord.): Australian Mesozoic and Cenozoic Palynology
Zonations - updated to the 2004 Geologic Time Scale. Geoscience Australia Record
2006/23. (on CD-ROM)
Pole, M., 2008. The record of Araucariaceae macrofossils in New Zealand. Alcheringa
32, 405-426.