Background information on Faure Island, Shark Bay, Western Australia

WA Museum Records and Supplements | Updated 7 years ago

ABSTRACT – Background information is given on a biological survey of Faure; Island, Shark Bay, conducted to provide a basis for a translocation program involving threatened mammal species presently surviving on outer islands of the bay. Tenure, climate, geology and land forms of the island arc summarised. Late Pleistocene marine shell beds arc described that represent transgressive phases of the last interglacial. Above these are dune deposits containing fossil land snails deposited during the arid, low sea level period of the last glacial cycle prior to the post~glacial transgression that re~created the bay and isolated Faure as an island. This geomorphic history is discussed in relation to the extinction of the mammal species on the mainland of the region and the suitability of Faure Island as a translocation site.