Late Devonian gastropods from the Canning Basin,Western Australia

Over 50 identifications of Tertiary pollen are reviewed. The pollen assemblages indicate rain-forest through most of the Tertiary, but the requisites for pollen preservation are biased towards the wetter climates.

The present day geographical affinities of the botanical groups are largely with taxa of the tropical zone and Australia-wide taxa. There is geographic variation in the fossil pollen assemblages when southeastern Australia is compared with Central Australia and Queensland.

The major changes in the fossil floras coincide with climatic change, indicating the influence of climate on the evolution of plant assemblages. The older phytogeographic concepts are inappropriate for the fossil record, especially when considered in conjunction with palaeoclimates and palaeogeography.

It is unfortunate that palynology has given little information of the evolution of floras in drier climatic regimes, or of the evolution of the eucalypts.     

Early Devonian Pacificocoelia sinica (Brachiopoda) from Northeastern Inner Mongolia

Leptocoeliid brachiopods from the Early Devonian Baruntehua Formation of Dong Ujimqin Qi, northeastern Inner Mongolia were assigned to Leptocoelia by Su (1976) and Zhang(1983), and subsequently to Pacificocoelia by Hou & Boucot (1990). Transverse serial sections of Pacificocoelia sinica are illustrated hère, for the first time, based on topotype specimens. The known geographic range o Pacificocoelia is from northern China, North America, South America and Kazakhstan (Eastern Americas Realm and also occurs in east-central Asia). Atlanticocoelia is regarded hère as a junior synonym of Pacificocoelia.     

An Early Permian brachiopod–gastropod fauna from the Calytrix Formation,Barbwire Terrace,Canning Basin,Western Australia

Taboada, A.C., Mory, A.J., Shi, G.R., Haig, D.W. & Pinilla, M.K., 12.11.2014. An Early Permian brachiopod–gastropod fauna from the Calytrix Formation, Barbwire Terrace, Canning Basin, Western Australia. Alcheringa 39, xxx–xxx. ISSN 0311-5518

A small brachiopod–gastropod fauna from a core close to the base of the Calytrix Formation within the Grant Group includes the brachiopods Altiplecus decipiens (Hosking), Myodelthyrium dickinsi (Thomas), Brachythyrinella narsarhensis (Reed), Neochonetes (Sommeriella) obrieni Archbold, Tivertonia barbwirensis sp. nov. and the gastropod Peruvispira canningensis sp. nov. The fauna has affinities with that of the late Sakmarian?early Artinskian Nura Nura Member directly overlying the Grant Group in other parts of the basin but, as with all lower Cisuralian (and Pennsylvanian) glacial strata in Western Australia, its precise age remains poorly constrained, especially in terms of correlation to international stages. Although the Calytrix fauna lies within the Pseudoreticulatispora confluens Palynozone, the only real constraint on its age (and that of the associated glacially influenced strata) is from Sakmarian (Sterlitamakian) and stratigraphically younger faunas. A brief review of radiometric ages from correlative strata elsewhere in Gondwana shows that those ages need to be updated. The presence of Asselian strata and the position of the Carboniferous?Permian boundary remain unclear in Western Australia.

Arturo César Taboada [ataboada@unpata.edu.ar], CONICET-Laboratorio de Investigaciones en Evolución y Biodiversidad (LIEB), Facultad de Ciencias Naturales, Sede Esquel, Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia ‘San Juan Bosco’, Edificio de Aulas, Ruta Nacional 259, km. 16,5, Esquel U9200, Chubut, Argentina; Arthur Mory [arthur.mory@dmp.wa.gov.au], Geological Survey of Western Australia, 100 Plain Street, East Perth, WA 6004, School of Earth and Environment, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia; Guang R. Shi [grshi@deakin.edu.au], School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University, Melbourne Burwood Campus, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Victoria 3125, Australia; David W. Haig [david.haig@uwa.edu.au], School of Earth and Environment (M004), The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia; María Karina Pinilla [mkpinilla@fcnym.unlp.edu.ar], División Paleozoología Invertebrados, Museo de Ciencias Naturales de La Plata, Paseo del Bosque s/n, 1900 La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina.     

Scaling heritage. The construction of scales in the submission process of alpinism to UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage list

ABSTRACT

For the last two decades, the polysemous notion of ‘scale’ has drawn an increasing amount of attention among scholars studying heritage policies and practices, often with regard to UNESCO conventions. Significantly, in many of these works, terms such as ‘global’, ‘national’ and ‘local’ are connected to categories of ‘scale’ or ‘level’ that are taken for granted by the scholars who use them to guide their analysis. This paper, in contrast, promotes a different, constructivist understanding of the notion of scale. From our perspective, there is an added value to be found in focusing—without using any preconceived or external conception of scale—on the ways in which stakeholders conceive of and use scale throughout the processes of heritage making. Using the case of alpinism and the creation of its file for submission to the Intangible Cultural Heritage list, we show that the interest of this approach lies in its comprehensive ability to highlight how people define, elaborate and use scale in order to qualify their practices or to achieve specific goals.     

Industrial Policy in Wallonia: A Rupture with the Past?

One of the main issues facing almost all European regional policy-makers is how to ensure a smooth adaptation of their industrial structure in the face of changing societal and technological parameters. In the case of the Belgian region Wallonia, industrial decline has particularly marked the economy during recent decades and the need to promote structural change has been a central preoccupation of national and, subsequently, regional governments. At the same time, the highly complex system of governance in Belgium renders the definition and application of a coherent regional industrial policy difficult. This paper explores the development of industrial policy in the Walloon region with particular attention to the period since 1990 and the pertinence of the instruments and delivery mechanisms with respect to the underlying structural issues facing the regional economy. The paper is divided into four sections: the first offers a historical profile of the industrial development of the Walloon economy and in particular identifies some of the factors which provoked a serious structural crisis. The section reviews the economic impact of the successive phases of rationalization and diversification which have taken place since the 1970s and discusses how the industrial strategies adopted by the business sector and supported by the regional government have influenced the speed of economic regeneration. The second section considers the complex federal system of government in Belgium and how it influences the freedom of action for regional industrial policy. The governance of the economy by the numerous public or semi-public institutions active in the field of industrial policy is a crucial issue. A critical review of the main initiatives, instruments and targets of industrial policy in Wallonia is offered in section three, while the paper concludes by contrasting the Walloon industrial policy with initiatives taken in the neighbouring area of South-West Flanders and ponders the issue of whether in the end the key factor arresting the development of Wallonia is the insufficient level of 'social capital'.     

L'arrivée des premiers métallurgistes sur l'Ogooué, Gabon

Résumé Au Gabonca 2400–2300 BP, les dernières cultures néolithiques des savanes de la moyenne vallée de l'Ogooué, succombent face à une rapide expansion de populations porteuses de fer. Cet événement, identifié sur des critères céramologiques et des mesures radiométriques, paraît situer l'arrivée des premiers métallurgistes — probablement Bantu — sur les berges de l'Ogooué.

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In the savannas of the middle stretches of the Ogooué valley in Gabon,ca 2400–2300 bp, the last neolithic cultures succombed to the rapid expansion of ironworking populations. This event, identified on ceramic criteria and radiocarbon dates, may represent the arrival of the first Bantu ironworkers on the banks of the Ogooué.