Australian Ordovician, Silurian, and Devonian Bryozoa Fossil Records

Bryozoan faunas were not readily located in many areas of New South Wales despite abundant marine fossils. The work investigates Middle and Upper Ordovician exposures in central-western New South Wales and Middle and Upper Devonian sequences in the Fitzroy Basin. Many described samples are isolated occurrences yielding two or three species.

Use Cases

• Study skeletal structure development in bryozoan zoaria based on the original aim of the investigation.
• Analyze species distribution significance across different stratigraphic successions mentioned in the description.
• Investigate bryozoan faunal abundance patterns in specific geological horizons like the Fitzroy Basin.
• Map fossil occurrence density through geological time based on the discontinuous distribution described.

Strengths

• Focuses on specific geological periods: Ordovician, Silurian, and Devonian.
• Investigates distinct geographical areas: central-western New South Wales and the Fitzroy Basin.
• Describes samples from field parties of the Bureau of Mineral Resources.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to data_gov_au, focusing on specific Australian districts.

Provenance

Source

Australian Ocean Data Network

Collection Method

Field collection by Bureau of Mineral Resources parties and subsequent investigation.

Time Range

Palaeozoic era (Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian periods)

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-05 02:41:37.006689; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australia, specifically New South Wales (Yass-Taemas, Tamworth districts, central-western areas) and the Fitzroy Basin.