On the Fossil Corals ( Madreporaria ) of the Australian Tertiary Deposits

Abstract

Conclusion When the list of the fossil corals of the Australian tertiaries is compared with that of the forms living in the Australian and New Zealand seas, it becomes evident that none of the recent species are represented in the Cainozoic strata. Of the twenty genera now existing around Australia, out of the immediate vicinity of coral reefs, only three had species in the Tertiaries. Trochocyathus, Flabellum , and Amphihelia , very world-wide genera, were represented in the tertiary strata by species which were very distinct from those now inhabiting the South-Australian and New-Zealand seas. The species which have been found as fossils, and which still exist in the Chinese, Japanese, and Red Seas, are Flabellum Clandeanum , and F. distinctum , The Chinese Placotrochus Candeanus is very closely allied to P. elongatus from the Hamilton tertiaries and Cape Otway, and the Deltocyathus is equally so to a West-Indian recent species. The alliance of the coral faunas of the Australian Tertiaries and of the surrounding coral seas is thus very slight; and the recent species have not been found in the uppermost of the Tertiaries. There are three species common to the Australian and the European Cainozoic deposits; so that the alliance of the Australian fossil fauna is as great with the European Cainozoic fauna as it is with that of the corals of the tropical seas to the north-east. There is a well-marked species of the Lower Miocene or Oligocene of Mayence, still living in Port Jackson, but it has not been found in