Early Cretaceous polar biotas of Victoria,southeastern Australia—an overview of research to date

Poropat, S.F., Martin, S.K., Tosolini, A.-M.P., Wagstaff, B.E, Bean, L.B., Kear, B.P., Vickers-Rich, P. &; Rich, T.H., May 2018. Early Cretaceous polar biotas of Victoria, southeastern Australia—an overview of research to date. Alcheringa 42, 158–230. ISSN 0311-5518.

Although Cretaceous fossils (coal excluded) from Victoria, Australia, were first reported in the 1850s, it was not until the 1950s that detailed studies of these fossils were undertaken. Numerous fossil localities have been identified in Victoria since the 1960s, including the Koonwarra Fossil Bed (Strzelecki Group) near Leongatha, the Dinosaur Cove and Eric the Red West sites (Otway Group) at Cape Otway, and the Flat Rocks site (Strzelecki Group) near Cape Paterson. Systematic exploration over the past five decades has resulted in the collection of thousands of fossils representing various plants, invertebrates and vertebrates. Some of the best-preserved and most diverse Hauterivian–Barremian floral assemblages in Australia derive from outcrops of the lower Strzelecki Group in the Gippsland Basin. The slightly younger Koonwarra Fossil Bed (Aptian) is a Konservat-Lagerstätte that also preserves abundant plants, including one of the oldest known flowers. In addition, insects, crustaceans (including the only syncaridans known from Australia between the Triassic and the present), arachnids (including Australia’s only known opilione), the stratigraphically youngest xiphosurans from Australia, bryozoans, unionoid molluscs and a rich assemblage of actinopterygian fish are known from the Koonwarra Fossil Bed. The oldest known—and only Mesozoic—fossil feathers from the Australian continent constitute the only evidence for tetrapods at Koonwarra. By contrast, the Barremian–Aptian-aged deposits at the Flat Rocks site, and the Aptian–Albian-aged strata at the Dinosaur Cove and Eric the Red West sites, are all dominated by tetrapod fossils, with actinopterygians and dipnoans relatively rare. Small ornithopod (=basal neornithischian) dinosaurs are numerically common, known from four partial skeletons and a multitude of isolated bones. Aquatic meiolaniform turtles constitute another prominent faunal element, represented by numerous isolated bones and articulated carapaces and plastrons. More than 50 specimens—mostly lower jaws—evince a high diversity of mammals, including monotremes, a multituberculate and several enigmatic ausktribosphenids. Relatively minor components of these fossil assemblages are diverse theropods (including birds), rare ankylosaurs and ceratopsians, pterosaurs, non-marine plesiosaurs and a lepidosaur. In the older strata of the upper Strzelecki Group, temnospondyl amphibians—the youngest known worldwide—are a conspicuous component of the fauna, whereas crocodylomorphs appear to be present only in up-sequence deposits of the Otway Group. Invertebrates are uncommon, although decapod crustaceans and unionoid bivalves have been described. Collectively, the Early Cretaceous biota of Victoria provides insights into a unique Mesozoic high-latitude palaeoenvironment and elucidates both palaeoclimatic and palaeobiogeographic changes throughout more than 25 million years of geological time.

Stephen F. Poropat*? [sporopat@swin.edu.au; stephenfporopat@gmail.com], Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, John St, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122, Australia; Sarah K. Martin*? [sarah.martin@dmirs.wa.gov.au; martin.sarahk@gmail.com] Geological Survey of Western Australia, 100 Plain St, East Perth, Western Australia 6004, Australia; Anne-Marie P. Tosolini [a.tosolini@unimelb.edu.au] and Barbara E. Wagstaff [wagstaff@unimelb.edu.au] School of Earth Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia; Lynne B. Bean [lynne.bean@anu.edu.au] Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Acton, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 2001, Australia; Benjamin P. Kear [benjamin.kear@em.uu.se] Museum of Evolution, Uppsala University, Norbyvägen 16, Uppsala SE-752 36, Sweden; Patricia Vickers-Rich§ [prich@swin.edu.au; pat.rich@monash.edu] Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, John St, Hawthorn, Victoria 3122, Australia; Thomas H. Rich [trich@museum.vic.gov.au] Museum Victoria, PO Box 666, Melbourne, Victoria 3001, Australia. *These authors contributed equally to this work. ?Also affiliated with: Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History, Lot 1 Dinosaur Drive, PO Box 408, Winton, Queensland 4735, Australia. ?Also affiliated with: Earth and Planetary Sciences, Western Australian Museum, Welshpool, Western Australia 6101, Australia. §Also affiliated with: School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria 3800, Australia.     

Multifractal Characterization of the Distribution Pattern of the Human Population

The generalized entropy, calculated from the quadrat counts of the population of the United States and Great Britain, is plotted against the logarithm of the quadrat size. These graphs are linear over a range of scales that corresponds to the size of a city up to the size of the country. This linearity indicates a strong scale-invariant component to the spatial population distribution pattern. Measurements of the generalized q-dimensions and alpha spectrum of the spatial population distribution patterns estimated from these graphs are presented.     

International regulation and regional development: Consequences of the single European market for small and medium sized enterprises in Portugal

In seeking to understand contexts for regional development an increasingly important element is the growing influence of international institutions and agreements in the regulation of economic systems. Within Europe the economic liberalization and increased market competition encouraged by the Single European Market (SEM) has been widely predicted to benefit larger elements of capital and core regions of economic activity at the expense of Europe's smaller firms and less favoured peripheral regions. Through analysis of results from empirical research, this paper will analyze the impact of the SEM on small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in north and central Portugal. The significance of sectoral and spatial variations in impact are examined by considering two industrial sectors, food and clothing, and the effectiveness of firms’ responses and policy initiatives in mediating the potentially negative impacts of Single Market competition are evaluated.     

The Dynamics of Growth in a Regional Urban System: Southern Ontario, 1851–1971

This study has four objectives: (1) to describe the dynamics of growth in the urban system of southern Ontario over the period from 1851 to 1971; (2) to determine whether this system has evolved in accordance with the Gibrat process of growth; (3) to contribute to the debate on the relationship between city-size distributions and economic development; and (4) to offer some technical and definitional suggestions with regard to the rank-size rule, urban primacy, and the measurement of population concentration. Related Canadian studies covering similar time periods are those of Simmons (1974), who has analysed the growth of larger cities (10,000 and over) at the national scale, and Bannister (1975), who has described the extent of spatial autocorrelation in the growth rates of southern Ontario's incorporated centres. Like Simmons and Bannister we are less concerned with the fortunes of particular places than with the response of the urban system as a whole to expansionary forces. We are centrally concerned with the phenomenon of differential growth (Borchert, 1967; Ward, 1971, pp. 11–49; Muller, 1976, 1977). The fact that towns grow at different rates implies changes in the frequency distribution of city size and in the level of concentration of the urban population. These changes, in turn, have interesting consequences for urban systems theory.     

On the origins of gunspalls

Historical Archaeology - Gunflints are of particular interest to historical archaeologists. One process of manufacture involved the wedge-shaped gunspall, which has been attributed to a Dutch...     

Book reviews

COMPARING FOREIGN POLICIES: Theories, Findings, and Methods. JAMES N. ROSENAU (ed.) Beverley Hills, Sage Publications distributed by John Wiley & Sons, New York, 442 pp., ISBN 0–470–73613–5, $A23.

NATIONS IN CONFLICT: National Growth and International Violence. NAZLI CHOUCRI and ROBERT C. NORTH, W.H. Freeman and Company, San Francisco, 356 pp., ISBN 0–7167–0773‐X, $US12.95.

CHINA'S FOREIGN RELATIONS SINCE 1949. ALAN LAWRANCE (ed.) Routledge & Kegan Paul, London and Boston, 1975. xii + 261pp. 0–7100–8092–1. $20.80 hardcover.

THE FATE OF THE ATLANTIC COMMUNITY. ELLIOT R. GOODMAN. Praeger, for the Atlantic Council of the United States, New York, 1975. pp.xx, 583. $27.50.

AFTER HITLER: REPORT FROM A WEST GERMAN CITY. JÜRGEN NEVEN‐DU MONT. Translated by Ralph Manheim. Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1974. 319 pp. $2.20     

A CITY OF TENANTS: HOMEOWNERSHIP AND SOCIAL CLASS IN MONTREAL, 1847–1881

Over the years 1847 to 1881, as Montreal industrialized, the rate of homeownership declined from 31.6 per cent to 14.7 per cent. From a selection of occupations representative of social classes, it is shown that the large working class was dispossessed, while homeownership increased among the bourgeoisie. Distinctive occupational profiles are reported for homeowners, absentee owners, and resident owners of duplexes and their tenants.
Au cours de la période d'industrialisation des années 1847 à 1881, Montréal est devenue une ville de loca-laires. Le pourcentage de propriétaires-occupants a chuté de 3 7,6 pour cent à 14,7 pour cent. A partir d'un èchantillon des occupations qui caractérisent chaque classe sociale, on découvre que chez les ouvriers le taux a fortement diminué, alors que dans la bourgeoisie il a augmenté. On trace le profil socio-professionnel de plu-sieurs catégories de propriétaires et de locataires, en dis-tinguant le propriétaire-occupant du non-occupant, I'habitat unifamilial du duplex.