WEST KIMBERLEY PLACE REPORT - Department of Sustainability ...

The Devonian reef outcrops of the Lennard Shelf have outstanding heritage
value to the nation under criterion (c) because of their potential to yield
information that will contribute to an understanding of the climatological and
biological processes that affect major reef systems.
Vertebrate evolution and analysis of fossils
Despite the large amount of work done on the Devonian Gogo fish fossil sites since
the 1960s and the many published studies, significant new finds are still common. A
major part of the story of Gogo studies is the development of new technology for the
preparation and study of specimens, which has allowed new layers of information to
be revealed. When the site was first found by Curt Teichert in the 1950s, he
disregarded the fossil fish possibly because, encased in hard limestone, the delicate
bones of the fish would not have survived mechanical preparation. In the 1960s, when
the site was visited by Harry Toombs, the newly developed method of dissolving the
limestone in an acid, chemically 'etching' the bones, allowed entire, delicate skeletons
to be revealed, often from fossils that had been discovered some time earlier (Long
2006). The most recent advances use high resolution scanning electron microscopy,
high-resolution computer tomography, X-ray and Synchrotron CT scanning to reveal
details of the soft tissue morphology that might otherwise be obscured by bone and
buried within the supporting matrix (Trinajstic and Long 2009; Ahlberg 2009).
Gogo's history is that of a site producing remarkable specimens with a potential for
study that increases with each new technological development and it has a high
potential to yield further information on the evolution of early Australian fish.
This potential is unlikely to exist to the same degree at the Devonian fish fossil sites
that have two-dimensional preservation. This material is often deformed as it is buried
and is rarely the original bone. At Wee Jasper, which has similar three dimensional
preservation, the material recovered so far has not been as complete as the Gogo
material. Nevertheless, some of the same techniques are revealing new details about
the Wee Jasper fish (Burrow et al. 2005). Together, Wee Jasper and Gogo provide
independent tests of new techniques in studying these Devonian faunas, which may be
applicable to other fossil types and sites in the future.
The Gogo fossil sites have outstanding heritage value to the nation under
criterion (c) as they have significant potential to yield new information about the
natural history of Australia, the evolution of Australian vertebrates and about
new technologies that can be used to study fossils.
Potential to yield further information on initial colonisation, human subsistence and
adaptation to climate change
The west Kimberley is in a strategic geographical position to answer a range of
important research questions regarding the initial colonisation of the continent, early
human subsistence and adaptation to climate change.
Only a small number of archaeological surveys have been undertaken in the region.
Those few investigations show that the west Kimberley has a long record of human
occupation from the Pleistocene through to the present day. Fifty thousand years ago,
the sea level was at least 100 metres lower and extensive coastal plains would have
provided food and other resources for the first human inhabitants. As the sea level
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