Devonian trilobites from the Broken River region of northeastern Australia

WA Museum Records and Supplements | Updated 9 years ago

Abstract - The Broken River Group in northeastern Queensland has produced the first Middle Devonian trilobites from Australia. With the exception of an undetermined phacopid from Emsian shales, all faunas were recovered from earliest Eifelian through Givetian to ?earliest Frasnian shallow water bioclastic limestones and marlstones. The specifically determinable part of the material consists entirely of five new taxa: Proetus (Devonoproetus) sparsinodosus (Eifelian), Proetus (Devonoproetus) latimargo (Eifelian), Burgesina mawsonae (Eifelian), Scutellum tenuistriatum (Givetian) and Phacops (Phacops) brocki (Givetian) A new genus of proetine, Burgesina, with type species B. mawsonae n. sp. is proposed. Preliminary palaeogeographical comparisons suggest only weak linkages with typical North Gondwanan faunas from Bohemia, southwestern Europe and North Africa. By contrast, the trilobites from the Broken River region are closely related to faunas from Inner Mongolia.

Author(s) Raimund Feistl and John A. Talent : Part 1
Page Number
65