Journal and Proceedings of
The Royal Society of New South Wales
Volume 127 Parts 1 and 2 [Issued June, 1994]
CONTENTS
| AUTHORS & TITLES | PAGES |
| Osborne, R.A.L. Caves, Cement, Bats and Tourists: Karst Science and Limestone Resource Management in Australia. (Presidential Address 1994) | 1-22 |
| Barker, J.S.F. From Buzatti to Buffaloes Excursions into Genetic Variation (3rd Walter Poggendorff Memorial Lecture, 1993). | 23-30 |
| Lawrence, L.J,, Stocksiek, C.M. and Williams, P.A. An Occurrence of Kröhnkite at Broken Hill, N.S.W. | 31-32 |
| Heathcote, K.A. and Piper R. Strength of Cement Stabilised Pressed Earth Bricks with Low Cement Contents | 33-37 |
| Dove, Andrew and Lee, Graham. Breccia Filled Diatreme in Permian Illawarra Coal Measures and Triassic Strata, Kandos, New South Wales | 39-45 |
| Chappell, B.K. Lachlan and New England: Fold Belts of Contrasting Magmatic and Tectonic Development (47th Clarke Memorial Lecture, 1993) | 47-59 |
| Theses Abstracts [Not reproduced on this page, but available here] | |
| Pickering, Catherine M. Reproductive Ecology of Five Species of Australian Alpine Ranuncu1us | 60 |
| Kaynak, Akif. A Study of Conducting Polyrrole Films in the Microwave Region | 62 |
| Baxter, Rohan A. Representation Issues in Genetic Algorithm Function Optimization | 63 |
| Roberts, Maureen B. The Diamond Path: A Study of Individuation in the Works of John Keats | 64 |
| Bills, Peter J. Barotropic Depth-Averaged and Three-Dimensional Tidal Programs For Shallow Seas | 65 |
| Zhu, Jin. Tannin Toxicity Studies in Mice and Sheep | 66 |
| Parkinson, Murray L. Multi-Frequency MF/Lower HF Ocean Radar Studies of Wind-Wave Transients | 67-68 |
| Woodward, Roslyn 'It's so strange when you stay sick'; The Challenge of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome | 69 |
v127 pts 1-2, pp.1-22
Caves, Cement, Bats and Tourists: Karst science and limestone resource management in Australia.
R. A. L. Osborne
Abstract: There is a long history of acrimonious disputes in eastern Australia between the conservation of caves and limestone (karst) landscapes and the extraction of limestone for industry. These disputes have often set legal precedents that have had important consequences in other areas of conservation. The disputes can be best understood as competition over a limited resource between users who hold conflicting world-views and value systems.
- Can these disputes, which have cost millions of dollars, be avoided in the future?
- Is it possible to achieve effective conservation and management of our karst resources and maintain an economically viable limestone industry?
- What should we do to rehabilitate abandoned limestone quarries?
- How do we avoid the environmental and engineering problems that can arise when urbanisation and infrastructure extends over limestone?
- How do we prevent recreational and tourist use of caves from causing irreparable damage?
These issues can only be resolved in the long term by political decisions, but such decisions will need to be informed by sound scientific advice.
Karst studies which could provide this advice are both fragmented and poorly developed in Australia. It is imperative for both economic and environmental reasons to expand and promote quality scientific research into Australia's karst and caves.
v127 pts 1-2, pp.23-30
From buzzatii to Buffaloes - Excursions into Genetic Variation
J.S.F. Barker
Abstract. Genetic variation is the stuff of evolution and the basic material of the plant and animal breeder. It also is ubiquitous and the amount of genetic variation is enormous. This variation is most obvious as differences among species – at least 10 million currently present on this planet. Yet there are also vast amounts of genetic variation within each species, some of which at least is obvious to us when we note that we recognise individuals of our own species as different. In fact, apart from identical twins, each individual is genetically unique.
In the last 20 years, the primary questions in evolutionary and population genetics have been – Why is there so much genetic variation? or What forces are operating to maintain it? At the same time, the question of interest in applied quantitative genetics (i.e. plant and animal breeding) has been — How can we best use genetic variation? More recently, attention has been directed also to – How can we conserve genetic variation? Two schools of thought have predominated in discussion of the maintenance of genetic variation. One, the neutralists, claimed that the observed variation is essentially unselected mutations that have no or only very slightly deleterious effects on the organism and are effectively irrelevant to evolution. The selectionists, on the other hand, argued that the observed variation is actively maintained by forces of balancing natural selection. As is usual in scientific controversies, the truth is somewhere in between – some variation being neutral, some maintained by selection, so that case by case analysis is necessary. Our contribution to this has been to use Drosophila buzzatii, a small fly that breeds in rotting cactus. This species was specifically chosen because its known breeding site allows the possibility of joint consideration of its genetics and ecology, and hence identification of selective forces. Genetic variation has been quantified by analysis of genes coding for enzymes, and results indicating selection effects are presented.
At the other end of the spectrum are the questions relating to the use and conservation of genetic variation in domestic plants and animals. On the global level, there are probably in excess of 3500 breeds and strains of domestic animals. Many breeds have disappeared in the last 30-40 years. and many are under threat. Particularly in the developing countries, little is known about these breeds, and specifically about genetic differences among them. Using methodology derived from evolutionary genetics, genetic differences among the swamp buffalo populations of southeast Asia have been investigated. Large differences were found, but most importantly, this work has laid the foundations for a major global program to determine the genetic differences among all breeds and strains in each of the domestic livestock species. This information is vital for the planning of breeding programs for genetic improvement, and of conservation programs to ensure that potentially valuable genetic variation remains available to meet future human needs.
v127 pts 1-2, pp.31-32
An Occurrence of Kröhnkite at Broken Hill, NSW
L.J. Lawrence, C.M. Stocksiek and P.A. Williams
Abstract. The rare, copper-bearing sulphate kröhnkite, Na2Cu(SO)42H2O, is reported from Broken Hill, NSW. It was found as a thin, sky blue crust coating a specimen of gypsum, CaSO4.2H2O, on garnet sandstone. This is the first record of kröhnkite in Australia.
v127 pts 1-2, pp.33-37
Strength of Cement Stabilised Pressed Earth Bricks with Low Cement Contents
K.A. Heathcote and R. Piper
Abstract. This paper examines the relationship between strength and cement content in pressed stabilised earth bricks for cement contents varying between 0 and 3.5%. It shows that adequate strength can be obtained from some soils at cement contents significantly lower than is the present practice (5-10%). It also examines the hypothesis that there is a minimum content below which the strength of the brick is determined by the soil parameters only and is unaffected by the presence of cement.
v127 pts 1-2, pp.39-45
Breccia Filled Diatreme in Permian Illawarra Coal Measures and Triassic Strata, Kandos, New South Wales.
Andrew Dove and Graham Lee (Communicated by P.C. Rickwood)
Abstract: A previously unknown diatreme has been mapped at the ground surface and in underground colliery workings at Kandos in the western Sydney Basin, New South Wales.
The diatreme intrudes the Lithgow Coal of the Permian Illawarra Coal Measures and penetrates through the overlying Early Triassic Narrabeen Group sandstone strata to crop out at the surface, where it is almost circular (330 x 260m). In the colliery, 260m below the surface, it is a much smaller elliptical shaped body (200 x 60m). Large fragments of rock rafted from overlying strata occur within the diatreme and are exposed in the colliery workings. Along the diatreme margins flow banding indicates multiple injections of magma, while sulphide mineralisation is also developed. Coal at the contact is relatively unaltered, but at the ground surface the sandstones surrounding the diatreme have been metamorphosed to quartzite.
The diatreme is thought to have been emplaced by a phreatomagmatic reaction, arising from interaction of magma with the ground water contained in the Marrangaroo Conglomerate or the Berry Formation, underlying the Lithgow Coal. These units were probably about 300m below the water table at the time the diatreme was injected.
(All locations are indicated by Australian Map Grid references that relate to the CMA 1:25,000 Topographic Maps 8832-1-S Ilford, 8832-1-N Kandos, and 8932-3-N Olinda. Only the sheet names are given subsequently.)
v127 pts 1-2, pp.47-59
Lachlan and New England: Fold Belts of Contrasting Magmatic and Tectonic Development
B.W. Chappell
47th Clarke Memorial Lecture devlivered before the Royal Society of New South Wales on 20th of October 1993.
Abstract. New South Wales contains significant parts of two fold belts, Lachlan and New England, which provide contrasting examples of tectonic development. The Lachlan belt is of distinctive and unusual character, with little evidence for its development according to processes of subduction and plate tectonics. The massive ca 400 Ma magmatic event in the Lachlan involved the vertical redistribution of older crust with little production of new crust. Granites of this age were apparently continuous from northern Victoria Land to at least Cape York Peninsular, a distance of 3600 km, in what is termed the Lachlan-Cape York Granite Belt. In contrast to the Lachlan belt, New England shows excellent evidence for modern-style tectonic development, including the some of the sedimentary, metamorphic, plutonic and volcanic rocks found in younger fold belts. In contrast to the Lachlan, the evolution of New England during the late Palaeozoic involved substantial production of new crust, consistent with the primitive isotopic compositions, and the uplift of the belt. Granites provide a useful tool in studying the crust because they compositionally image their source rocks in the deep crust. Application of this principle has shown that large areas of the Lachlan belt are underlain by a thick layer of sedimentary rocks that are less evolved, i.e. more feldspar-rich, than the exposed Ordovician sediments. To overcome the problems associated with the deposition of the deep water marine Ordovician sediments on older sedimentary crust, it is proposed that the older basement may have been thinned by crustal extension, which could have lead to deposition of the Ordovician sediments on a depressed basement, and an enhanced heat flow that resulted in massive amounts of melting. I-type granites of the Lachlan are dominantly granodioritic and unlike those of a Cordilleran belt. In contrast, the Clarence River Supersuite of the New England Batholith is distinctly Cordilleran in character. Among the other rather diverse granites of New England, the Moonbi Supersuite may represent an analogue of the potassic rocks of the Sierra Nevada Batholith. The Clarence River type probably represents the partial melting of a basaltic underplate, while the Moonbi source rocks were distinctly shoshonitic and in some cases enriched to very high levels in elements such as Sr, Ba, Pb and Th. The isotopic composition of all of the New England granites, including the S-types, is relatively primitive, consistent with the development of the belt as new crust during the late Palaeozoic. While the igneous rocks of the Lachlan belt can be used to argue strongly against its development by the accretion of new crust, those of New England have features that point strongly the other way. A comparison of the granites in the two belts thus confirms the distinctive character of the Lachlan. It is suggested that some of the significant structural features of the Lachlan belt may be related to events in New England, The strong late-Devonian (Tabberaberan) deformation in parts of the Lachlan was coeval with activity in the Baldwin Arc and may have resulted from the collision of a major part of the evolving New England Orogen with the cratonic Lachlan belt. Likewise, the later Carboniferous (Kanimblan) deformation may have been related to the Andean volcanic chain that later developed in western New England.