RARE FOSSIL SHELLS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23177, 25 October 1938, Page 5

RARE FOSSIL SHELLS

WESTERN AUSTRALIA INTERESTING DEDUCTIONS [from our own correspondent] SYDNEY, Oct. 18 Fossil shells discovered some time ago in the southern part of the Kimbcrlev districts, in tho far north of Western Australia, have been found by Dr. C. Teichert, research palaeontologist at the University of Western Australia, to be the only fossils of their kind yet recorded outside Europe or America. Speaking 011 "Devonian Xautoloid Cephalopods" at a meeting of the Hoval Society of Western Australia, Dr. Teichert said geological studies showed that" the distribution of the land and sea had been subject to frequent changes in the past, and large tracts of Australia were at different periods covered by sea. The nautoloid group of fossil animals lived in the sea of the Devonian period, about M 0,000,000 years ago.

Until Dr. Teichert recognised the specimens in the university fossil collection and in tho fossil collection at Canberra they had not been recorded outside Europe or America.