Ordovician Biomarker and Microfossil Data from Canning Basin Cores

Geoscience Australia Data provides a multi-disciplinary study of the Middle Ordovician Goldwyer Formation from four boreholes in the Canning Basin, Western Australia. The dataset integrates palynological, petrographic, molecular, and stable isotopic analyses to determine depositional environments and microbial diversity during the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event.

Use Cases

• Analyze lateral and temporal variations in lipid biomarker assemblages to infer changing redox conditions between Goldwyer Formation units.
• Correlate the presence of Gloeocapsomorpha prisca with high 3-methylhopane indices and δ13C-depleted biomarkers to investigate ecological relationships with methanotrophs.
• Study the distribution of cryptospores and terrestrial biomarkers like benzonaphthofurans to assess the geographical spread of early land plants in the Ordovician.
• Examine the co-occurrence of marine organisms (acritarchs, chitinozoans, conodonts, graptolites) with specific biomarker signatures across different formation units.

Strengths

• Integrates four distinct analytical disciplines: palynological, petrographic, molecular, and stable isotopic analyses.
• Data derived from cores extracted from four separate boreholes, providing spatial sampling.
• Includes identification of the oldest cryptospores recorded in Australian Middle Ordovician strata.
• Research contributes molecular perspective to a significant evolutionary event, the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event.

Limitations

• Specific data structure (rows, columns, sample data) and file size are unknown, limiting immediate analytical readiness.
• Data is published as HTML, which may require significant extraction and parsing to convert into a structured, machine-readable format.
• The study is focused on a specific geological formation and time period, limiting generalizability to other contexts.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia Data, derived from research published in Global and Planetary Change, 2017.

Collection Method

Multi-disciplinary analyses (palynological, petrographic, molecular, stable isotopic) of rock core samples from four boreholes.

Time Range

Middle Ordovician period.

Freshness

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Geography

Canning Basin, Western Australia.