Journal and Proceedings of
The Royal Society of New South Wales
Volume 119 Parts 1 and 2 [Issued December, 1986]
CONTENTS
| AUTHORS & TITLES | PAGES |
| Dulhunty Symposium | |
| Webby, B.D., John A. Dulhunty – An Appreciation | 3-6 |
| Branagan, D.F., The Sydney Floods of November 1984 and Engineering Geology | 7-28 |
| Dulhunty, J.A., Mesozoic Garrawilla Lavas Beneath Tertiary Volcanics of the Nandewar Range | 29-32 |
| Helby, R., Lennox, M. and Roberts, J., The Age of the Permian Sequence in the Stroud-Gloucester Trough | 33-42 |
| Martin, H.A., Tertiary Stratigraphy, Vegetation and Climate of the Murray Basin in New South Wales | 43-53 |
| Osborne, R.A.L., Cave and Landscape Chronology at Timor Caves, New South Wales | 55-75 |
| Stanton, R.L., The Influence of Sedimentary Environment on the Development of Stratiform Ore Type | 77-81 |
| Swaine, D.J., Rapid Weathering of a Siltstone | 83-88 |
| Tompkins, D.K., Academic Studies and the Coal Industry. The Sampling of Coal as a Bulk Commodity | 89-93 |
| Loxton, John H., The Love of Numbers [Presidential Address, 2 April, 1986] | 95-101 |
| Brophy, J.J. and Lassak, E.V., The Volatile Leaf Oils of Some Central Australian Species of Eucalyptus | 103-108 |
| Cook, J.L. and Rose, E.K., Meson Source Densities for Excited States of the Nucleon | 109-121 |
| Pain, C.F. and Ollier, C.D., The Comboyne and Bulga Plateaus and the Evolution of the Great Escarpment in New South Wales | 123-130 |
| Kramer, Leonie, Broadcasting to the Nation. [Address on the Occasion of the Annual Dinner of the Royal Society of NSW, 18th March, 1986] | 131-133 |
| Abstracts of Theses [Opened in a new page] | |
| Young, Jock W., A Study of Hyperiid Amphipods (Peracarida: Crustacea) Associated with a Warm Core Eddy in the Tasman Sea | 135 |
| King, G.F., NMR Studies of the Uptake and Degradation of Peptides by Human Erythrocytes | 137-138 |
| Rodger,P. M., Stochastic Theories of Solution Dynamics | 139-140 |
| Rodger, A., Symmetry Selection Rules. Analytic Development and Chemical Application | 141 |
| Endre, Z.H. NMR Studies on the Intracellular Viscosity and Cell Volume of Human Erythrocytes | 143-144 |
| Drew, Colleen A., Acute and Chronic Effects of Lead and Other Metals on GABA Neurochemistry | 145 |
pp.3-6
John A. Dulhunty – An Appreciation
B.D. Webby
| Full Text here | Return to Top |
pp.7-28
The Sydney Floods of November 1984 and Engineering Geology
D. F. Branagan
Abstract. In the period 5 – 12 November 1984 Sydney experienced some of the heaviest rainfall ever recorded. This paper considers specific localities (Waverton, Bellevue Hill and Dover Heights) where geological conditions contributed in various degrees to the damage by flooding and erosion and consequent human suffering.
At Waverton, where massive Hawkesbury Sandstone outcrops, contributing factors were (a) man-made structures which diverted water from natural drainage paths, and (b) the failure of artifical embankments.
In the Eastern Suburbs the irregular boundary between the Hawkesbury Sandstone and overlying sand makes it difficult to predict the paths of water which sinks into the sands. Once the sands are saturated the potential for failure and heavy flows along the irregular sand/sandstone faces is considerable.
However the main control on flow paths is the artificial topography created by urbanisation. This contributed to major flooding at Rose Bay, after a number of separate sandwater slurries combined to form a single deep stream.
While similar flooding is to be expected again and cannot be entirely prevented, some measures can be taken to reduce likely damage.
The extreme conditions may have influenced the attitude of engineers involved in the discussion on the Maximum Possible Flood concept which, in 1985, led to the decision to carry out major strengthening of Warragamba Dam.
pp.29-32
Mesozoic Garrawilla Lavas Beneath Tertiary VoIcanics of the Nandewar Range
J.A. Dulhunty
Abstract. Basic alkaline volcanic rocks of Mesozoic K-Ar ages crop out from beneath Jurassic Pilliga Sandstone on the western side of the Nandewar Range, and underlie Tertiary alkaline flows in the western foothills of the range. The lowest Nandewar Tertiary flows lying on Pilliga Sandstone, are about 2 Ma older than those previously dated at higher levels. Thinning of the Mesozoic and Tertiary lavas to the west of the range suggests that both rose, possibly from the same magma reservoir, along fracturing of the Hunter-Mooki Thrust in each of the two periods.
pp.33-42
The Age of the Permian Sequence in the Stroud-Gloucester Trough
R. Helby, M. Lennox and J. Roberts
Abstract. Two microfloras from the Stroud-Gloucester Trough indicate Permian ages for two important stratigraphic units within the succession. That from the base of the Alum Mountain Volcanics conforms with the Pseudoreticulatispora pseudoreticulata to Granulatisporites trisinus Interval Zone of Price (1983) and Stage 3a of Kemp et al. (1977), and is Early Permian in age. The second microflora from the Thirty Foot Coal in the Weismantels Formation conforms with the Dulhuntyispora granulata to Didecitriletes ericianus Interval Zone of Price (1983) and Stage 3a of Kemp et al. (1977), and is probably early Middle Permian in age.
pp.42-53
Tertiary Stratigraphy, Vegetation and Climate of the Murray Basin in New South Wales
H.A. Martin
Abstract. The palynology has been done on some one hundred bores in the Murray Basin, including recent work in the western part of the basin. The oldest of the Tertiary sediments are late Eocene and the youngest containing pollen, middle Miocene. The upper 80 m to 100 m of sediment are barren.
The Oligocene through early Miocene P. tuberculatus Zone has been subdivided using quantitative events, or changes in abundance of some common pollen types. These events are reliable for local stratigraphic correlation. One event, the change to high Myrtaceae ratios, may be traced over the whole of the basin, but it is time transgressive, occurring earlier in northwest and later in the southeast.
The palaeovegetation throughout this time was rainforest and there was regional variation over the basin. Through most of the Oligocene, when Nothofagus was abundant, the climate was very wet, with constant high humidity. The change to high Myrtaceae, starting in the late Oligocene in the northwest, marked a drop in precipitation, probably to about 1500 mm. In the northwest, araucarians became abundant in the early Miocene and there was a further drop in precipitation, possibly with the development of a seasonal moisture deficit. The top of the pollen bearing sequence, probably mid Miocene, marked a further drop in precipitation to levels below that required to support the permanently wet sites necessary for pollen preservation.
It is thought that changes in the palaeovegetation prior to the late Oligocene are due mainly to the effects of changing sea levels. The late Oligocene changeover to high Myrtaceae and subsequent events are thought to reflect a drier climate which was the result of the developing circum-Antarctic oceanic circulation and glaciation on Antarctica. The events documented here show that the drying out process, which leads eventually to the present aridity, started in the late Oligocene in these inland areas.
pp.55-75
Cave and Landscape Chronology at Timor Caves, New South Wales
R.A.L. Osborne
Abstract. Caves have existed at Timor Caves since before the Late Cretaceous and much of the present landscape of the area had its origins prior to the extrusion of Eocene basalts and tuffs.
Main Cave (TR 1) at Timor Caves was formed by the excavation of both bedrock and palaeokarst sediment below the water table under nothephreatic conditions. The palaeokarst sediment represents an extensive former cave filled with speleothem deposited under vadose conditions.
A tabular basalt body exposed in Main Cave is interpreted here as a flow filling a cave at a time intermediate between deposition of the palaeokarst and excavation of the present cave. The basalt has been dated at 73.5 Ma. This provides a maximum age for the present cave void and a minimum age for the palaeokarst.
Two similar basalt bodies exposed in Belfry Cave (TR 2) are also interpreted as flows.
The excavation of Main Cave corresponds with a significant and sustained rise in the local water table most likely associated with filling of the adjacent valley of Isaacs Creek by Eocene ( circa 53 Ma ) basalt of the Liverpool Range Beds.
Geomorphic evidence suggests that Isaacs Creek adjacent to the caves had a well developed valley before the Eocene basalt was extruded. Since the flows in Belfry Cave did not interact with groundwater, topographic relief during the Late Cretaceous was much the same as at present.
pp.77-81
The Influence of Sedimentary Environment on the Development of Stratiform Ore Type
R.L. Stanton
Abstract. At the beginning of 1951 when Dr. J.A. Dulhunty assumed responsibility for the teaching of Economic Geology in the University of Sydney, it was believed almost universally that layered sulphide orebodies within sedimentary and meta-sedimentary rocks had been formed by subsurface replacement. It was considered that the relevant hydrothermal solutions were derived from underlying granitic intrusions, and that localization and layering of the orebodies reflected the selectivity of the replacement process.
The year 1951 may almost be seen as a turning point. Within the next two years it began to be suspected that many of these layered sulphide occurrences were not manifestations of selective replacement, but were sediments in their own right.
In the ensuing 35 years not only has this suspicion been abundantly confirmed, but it has also been recognized that such layered ores embrace a wide variety of types, and that such types are in turn largely a reflection of variation in sulphide sedimentology.
It appears that a spectacular example of the influence of sedimentary environment over the development of ore type may be provided by the class of "stratiform skarn" deposits. These stratiform concentrations of calcsilicates and sulphides have been loosely attributed to contact metamorphic recrystallization and replacement of limestone and associated carbonate-rich metasediment. However, it now appears that at least some of these occurrences represent primary seafloor exhalation and alteration, and the direct deposition of calc-silicate and sulphide, in moderately restricted environments of carbonate sedimentation.
This well-known but perhaps frequently misinterpreted ore type may illustrate yet again the influence of sedimentary processes and facies development in the formation of many of our most important ore deposits.
pp.83-88
The Rapid Weathering of a Siltstone
D.J. Swaine
Abstract. The rapid weathering of an excavated siltstone at Liddell, New South Wales, was investigated. Framboidal pyrite in the siltstone was intimately associated with carbonate minerals, mainly dolomite. It seems that the pyrite was oxidised by air, water Fand probably iron-oxidising bacteria to form sulfuric acid which reacted with the carbonate minerals to form gypsum and epsomite. These chemical changes together with some expansion effects caused the breakdown of the siltstone.
pp.89-93
Academic Studies and the Coal Industry; The Sampling of Coal as a Bulk Commodity
D.K. Tompkins
Abstract. Nearly all of the standards which govern the taking of samples of coal for commercial evaluation may be regarded as "old generation" standards. In general, they have been developed from procedures which were in common use more than 50 years ago when the quantities of coal traded and used were considerably smaller than today, when the needs for accurate evaluation of qualities were much less and when coal handling systems were quite primitive by today's standards. Many of the national and international organisations responsible for the publication of coal sampling standards have been actively pursuing the review of existing documents and procedures with the aim of generating new standards more appropriate to modern practice and conditions. The Standards Association of Australia has taken a leading role in this work and a new Australian Standard in 8 parts was published in 1984/85. This new standard, whilst generally acknowledged as a considerable advance on the previous Australian Standard, published in 1975, must however be regarded as an interim measure and further work is proceeding with a view to incorporating, in the next edition, as many as possible of the advances in sampling theory which have occurred and been refined over the past 5 to 10 years into what must always be an essentially practical document.
This contribution examines some of the aspects of changes in the latest coal sampling standards, with particular reference to the new Australian Standard and attempts to identify some of the further changes that seem likely to be introduced in these same features in the next generation of standards. Future standards will be aimed at further improving the accuracy of sampling coal as a bulk commodity and allowing the development of sampling schemes which are appropriate to the massive infrastructure of the industry.
pp.95-101
The Love of Numbers
John H.Loxton
[Presidential Address devlivered before the Royal Society of New South Wales on 2nd April 1986]
| No Abstract: Full Paper here | Return to Top |
pp.103-108
The Volatile Leaf Oils of Some Central Australian Species of Eucalyptus
Joseph J. Brophy and Erich V. Lassak
Abstract.The volatile leaf oils of Eucalyptus intertexta var. fruticosa, E. lucens, E. mannensis, E. normantanensis, E. ochrophloia, E. orbifolia, E. pachyphylla and E. sparsa have been examined by means of a combination of capillary gas liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry. All oils, with the exception of E. ochrophloia which contains significant amounts of sesquiterpenoids, are monoterpenoid in nature and contain 1,8-cineole as their main component. The flavonoid glycoside rutin has been isolated from E. pachyphylla foliage.
pp.109-121
Meson Source Densities For Excited States of the Nucleon
J.L. Cook and E.K. Rose
Abstract. A relationship is established between effective range theory and the reaction matrix. Pion-nucleon scattering, excited state single level meson source densities and pion wave functions are then given for two reference sets of low energy phase shift data, fitted to the multilevel reaction matrix. The resultant P11 nucleon ground state wave function reproduces the nucleon form factor and gives the correct position and residue for the nucleon pole.
pp.123-130
The Comboyne and Bulga Plateaus and the Evolution of the Great Escarpment in New South Wales
C.F. Pain and C.D. Ollier
Abstract. The Comboyne and Bulga Plateaus are scarp-bounded outliers of a palaeoplain located east of the Great Escarpment in northern N.S.W. The Comboyne Basalts are related volcanic plugs enable a chronology to be derived, and in the immediate area of the plateaus scarp retreat has brought the escarpments to their present position within the past 16 m.y. The plateaus are preserved not because of basalt or any other caprock, or because of any special structural resistance, but because their position on an ancient watershed was a location most protected from erosion. To some extent the plateaus may have been protected by the resistant Triassic conglomerate between the plateaus and the coast. The plateaus are "plateaus of circumdenudation" and can be seen to be a result of locally slower rates of knickpoint retreat than were generally operative in the area. Scarp retreat is clearly the dominant mechanism of erosion so long as plateau remnants are preserved, and the escarpment has even eroded back into trachyte plugs to form half domes. The relatiionship between the plateaus and other landforms, depicted on a terrain classification map, suggests that once plateaus are removed further landscape evolution is by stream incision and eventually slope decline.
Key words: Comboyne Plateau, Bulga Plateau, Great Escarpment, palaeoplain, scarp retreat
pp.131-133
Broadcasting to the Nation
Leonie Kramer
[Address by Professor Dame Leonie Kramer DBE to The Royal Society of New South Wales at the Annual Dinner held at the Sydney Hilton on Tuesday, 18th March, 1986]
Asa Briggs, describing the early life of the BBC, wrote:
it was no longer engaged in an ordeal for survival; it was gradually acquiring a more mature and confident personality of its own.
These words have a familiar ring, for both the sentiment and the metaphor have been applied many times (and at different stages) to artistic development in Australia. They could have been written by any one of a number of critics of Australian literature in the nineteenth or twentieth centuries. They remind us that there are institutional, as well as cultural examples of the links between the old world and the new. There is nothing novel about the general proposition that a newly settled country will begin by importing what it needs until it learns to make things for itself. As in literature, so in broadcasting, Australia was fortunate in its inheritance, and in particular in the example provided by the BBC.
The ABC was born into a decade which had not begun promisingly for the arts. There was none of the literary excitement that had been generated in the 1890s round The Bulletin, and none of the major journals which have since played so important a role in the dissemination of ideas about literature and the arts had been established. There were attempts to lay down the principles of a national literature and theatre, notably by the Jindyworobak movement and its founder Rex Ingamells, and by the writer Vance Palmer, but these efforts did not stir the imagination of the public. To this Australian community, sceptical of its own cultural capacities, much inclined to regard imported literature, theatre and music as necessarily better than anything that could be produced locally, and uncertain of standards of accomplishment, the ABC began to broadcast. It will perhaps never be possible to make a definitive assessment of its contribution to Australian cultural development. But over the next fifty years it effectively established and supported the musical life of the country through its broadcasts and orchestral concerts; through its school broadcasts and general talks it helped to educate countless numbers of people; it provided services to isolated communities, so far as its technical facilities permitted; and it provided a new medium for writers, (especially in radio and drama and features), musicians and actors; above all, it was relied upon by the whole community for accurate and objective news and information services. Towards the end of the 1930s Australian literature showed the first signs of flowering into the modern world, and the ABC must take some credit for having prepared audiences for new artistic energies. It is quite unlikely it could have done any of these things without the Reith model of broadcasting to guide it.
Australia has not been good at creating general ideas, and is still not (though it has been conspicuously inventive in science and technology). But once the fundamental principles were understood, their implementation was marked by originality and by sensitivity to the needs and interests of the audience. The comparison with literary growth again suggests itself.
The ABC was established only five years after the BBC became a corporation whose charter guaranteed its independence of both government and business. Even before this, however, Reith had set the stamp of his own high ideals and vision upon the operation of the British Broadcasting Company. At the valedictory dinner which marked the end of 'the old BBC', Reith restated his philosophy of broadcasting and said
We have tried to found a tradition of public service and to dedicate the service of broadcasting to the service of humanity in its fullest sense.
Three particular aspects of Reith's philosophy were translated directly into the ABC – the absence of the profit motive, the idea of national coverage, and the establishment and maintenance of the highest standards. Both those last two principles demand a particular concept of the audience. Reith took the view that 'it is better to over-estimate the mentality of the public than to under-estimate it'. He also referred, not to a mass audience, but a number of different publics who together make up the audience. As Briggs comments:
The 'publics' are treated with respect not as nameless aggregates with statistically measurable preferences, 'targets' for the programme sponsor, but as living audiences capable of growth and development. In other words, Reith's theory of public service began with a conception of the public.
Australia was the fortunate inheritor of these ideas, for like many other countries throughout the world, it looked in the late 20s to the BBC as a model. So the ABC began with clear objectives – to serve people throughout Australia; to offer a range of programmes which in content and presentation would provide, so far as is possible, something for everyone at some time; and to maintain high standards. From the beginning, however, the ABC suffered by comparison with the BBC one singular disadvantage. It had commercial competitors – the B-class stations. Reith warned Menzies in 1935 that unless they were checked they 'would become so powerful that no one would touch them. ' In the following year Menzies acknowledged that Reith had been right, and when Reith asked if they were going to 'put things right' Menzies replied 'No, we haven't the guts'.
Meanwhile the ABC was following closely the structural arrangements and programming policy of the BBC. Departments of Music, Talks, Education and so-on mirrored their model, much as Charles Harpur a century earlier had taken over poetic forms from his British predecessors. And as Harpur's circumstances and environment gave those forms new substance, so the character of Australia placed different obligations upon the ABC. Country areas in particular relied on it, and rural broadcasts assumed great importance. News and information were eagerly awaited by scattered populations with inadequate roads where great distances delayed mail services. Had Reith visited Australia in the early 1930s (he did not until 1945) he would have had ample confirmation of his faith in the value of broadcasting, and of the soundness of his humanitarian vision. Perhaps he might even have been surprised to see how firmly the ABC had taken root in the still uncertain cultural climate of a new civilization. But at that time the ties of knowledge and feeling with Britain were still strong. These ties, seen as a weakness by fervent nationalists then and now, were a strength for many Australian institutions, not only for the ABC.
It is a measure of the difference between Britain and Australia that the importance of the independence of the ABC has not been as well understood as has the BBC's. Public service broadcasting came to mean over the years broadcasting conducted under the rules of bureaucratic operations. As time went on the ABC was gradually strangled by the finicky attention of government departments, and intermittently threatened by politicians made uneasy by its independent voice. John Curtin's fine speech to Parliament in 1945 defining the difference between the national broadcaster and government agencies was seemingly forgotten:
The Government recognises that the intent of the Australian Broadcasting Act is to create a position of special independence of judgement and action for the national broadcasting instrumentality. This is inevitably the case because of its highly delicate function in broadcasting at public expense news statements and discussions which are potent influences on public opinion and attitudes. As the legislation provides, this peculiar function calls for an undoubted measure of independence for the controlling body of the national broadcasting instrumentality which cannot be measured by the constitution of other semigovernmental boards or agencies which do not impinge on the tender and dangerous realms of moral, religious, aesthetic and political values.
In the last resort, the healthy and beneficent function of national broadcasting and the maintenance of public confidence in the system must rest, in all matters touching these values, solely on the integrity and independent judgment of the persons chosen to determine and administer its policy, and not on either review by, or pressure from, any sources outside it, political or nonpolitical. This principle holds good in spite of the necessary responsibility of the Commission to Parliament, through the Minister, for the legitimate use of its funds under the terms of the Act, and all the sections of the Act should be read in the light of the above general intent of Parliament in the establishment of the Commission.
Australians are afflicted by government activities at all levels, and the ABC's capacity to plan ahead and to develop policy initiatives was greatly hampered by the requirements that it work to the regulations of a number of government departments, and respond to numerous enquiries, most of which seemed remarkably adept at ignoring first principles. At the same time, Reith's warning about the proliferation of commercial broadcasting interests proved correct; and since these operate upon precisely that concept of audience Rieth rightly rejected, there has long been a conflict between the ideals embodied in the various Broadcasting Acts, and the realities of broadcasting in Australia. (it is interesting that the advent of the ITA in Britain seems to have brought about a 'duopoly', and that both organizations pursue similar ends from a different funding basis.) Commercial stations appeal to the materialism of Australian society, and constitute formidable opposition to the ABC. The position was greatly exacerbated by the advent of television. It was taken for granted – as it should not have been that the ABC could continue to fulfil its obligations under the Act with one television channel, and at the same time attract a reasonable audience share against the well-funded commercial outlets. It is difficult to imagine that, without the benefit of those clearly stated and firmly implemented principles that earned the BBC a world reputation even in its early years, the ABC could from within have generated the understanding of its role and the will to fulfil it which have, in spite of its critics, marked its operations.
On 1 July 1983 the ABC became a corporation, and was released from the supervision of the Public Service Board in relation to its staffing policies. This represented a real improvement in its capacity to review its staff and to begin to develop the flexibility so long enjoyed by the BBC. Early statements from the new organisation referred to ending the dominance of BBC programmes. (Though not specifically stated, this was a reference to television, and seemed rather like complaining that Shakespeare dominated the theatre.) Since then there have been more discreet references to diversifying sources of imported programmes and increasing Australian content. But what is Australian content? Is it, in literary terms, Henry Lawson or Martin Boyd? Patriot or expatriate? Could it conceivably be both? To put the question this way is to suggest that the debate about literary nationality is political, and that is probably the truth of it. The recent emphasis on popularising the ABC is, in some measure, a reference to unspoken assumption about the nature of the 'real' Australian audience.
Whatever is meant by popularising, however, it implies the pursuit of that 'mass' audience so firmly rejected by Reith. That it does mean this is reinforced by the adoption by the new corporation of a commercial image. Now there is much talk of those 'statistically measurable preferences' that had no part in Reith's concept of the public. The difference in outlook is instructive, and might, in its own way, reflect a deliberate, if not entirely rational, tugging at the supposed apronstrings, and a superficial response to the increase in Australia's non-English speaking migrants. In the last decade there has been a marked tendency to confuse Australia's political status (frequently misrepresented as one of dependence on Britain) with its historical legacy.
The literary model and the institutional one, as I have described them are in conflict at the present time. The 'new directions' of the ABC are, in part, a rejection of the past and of the history of the ABC, in favour of competitiveness and a simply conceived nationalism and populism. Writers – and artists in general – represent the deeper understanding which comes from contemplation of past and present, and of the way individual lives are moulded by knowledge and experience. Both tendencies take distinctive forms in Australia, and their tensions might be productive. But it is difficult not to hope that the artistic impulse will triumph, and in doing so revitalize those institutions which need to respond to change without surrendering to mere novelty. If, to use Hal Porter's words this is 'a country with a fluctuating soul', much of its potential richness will depend on its recognizing and not dismissing that vision.