Reviews

Australian Kin Classification.: By Harold W. Scheffler. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 1978. Pp. xx + 569.     

Pliocene corals from the Togopi Formation of the Dent Peninsula,Sabah, northeastern Borneo,Malaysia

Saw, J.V.M., Hunter, A.W., Johnson, K.G. & Abdul Rahman, A.H.B., November 2018. Pliocene corals from the Togopi Formation of the Dent Peninsula, Sabah, northeastern Borneo, Malaysia. Alcheringa 43, 291–319. ISSN 0311-5518

The palaeobiology of the Malay Archipelago region remains poorly documented, despite its present-day significance as a modern global marine biodiversity hotspot. The Togopi Formation of the Dent Peninsula, situated in Borneo on the western Sulu Sea and eastern coast of Sabah, Malaysia, preserves Plio-Pleistocene sedimentary sequences interpreted to represent localized transgressive episodes, and which have a relatively high coral diversity. Fossil corals were sampled from three available quarries on the Dent Peninsula, the sediments of which have been previously dated as 4.5–3.4?Ma in age based on foraminiferal data and radiometric analyses. These Pliocene corals are identified here based on their macromorphology, micromorphology and microstructural characteristics. In total, this study describes 28 fossil coral taxa, with 16 genera recognized and 22 taxa identified to species level, 21 of which can be confidently assigned to extant species. These new data have resulted in revised stratigraphic ranges for eight of these species. As the most comprehensive systematic survey of corals from the Pliocene of the Indo-Pacific to date, this study indicates a high diversity of corals on the margin of the Sabah Sea, Borneo, at this time, including taxa found today, thus casting doubt on the local impact of the Plio-Pleistocene extinction previously reported from faunal analyses of the central Indo-Pacific.

Jasmin V.M. Saw [varnmay@yahoo.com] Department of Petroleum Geosciences, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, 32610 Seri Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia; Aaron W. Hunter* [awh31@cam.ac.uk] Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EQ, UK; Kenneth G. Johnson [k.johnson@nhm.ac.uk] Department of Earth Sciences, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK; Abdul Hadi B Abdul Rahman [hadi_rahman@utp.edu.my] Department of Petroleum Geosciences, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, 32610 Seri Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia. *Also affiliated with: School of Earth Sciences, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia.     

Policy capacity in disruptive times

ABSTRACT

In considering the widely held view that we have experienced an era of qualitative decline in policy provision, this paper briefly reviews four questions that appear to underlie such a view. Have there been identifiable transitions in deliberative processes, political practices and policy capacity in recent decades (and if so, what were the catalysts)? Has the relationship between policy practitioners and expert providers of policy advice changed (and if so, how)? Have channels of communication between the political/policy community and the research community deteriorated (and if so, why)? Has the political appreciation of public concerns and the public understanding of policy imperatives diminished? We use these to frame the results of a workshop in which researchers, policy practitioners and service providers participated. Our objective is to identify systematically the origin of contemporary policy problems, foreshadowing four articles that illuminate instances of success and failure in disruptive times.