Coffs Harbour - Field trip: Plant fossils of the Nymboida coal measures

Not for the first time, plant fossils are causing talk in Coffs Harbour. Just two years ago the North Coast Regional Botanic Garden created the Botanists Walk to honour a group of influential botanists. Amongst them was Mary E White who trained as a paleobotanist in South Africa and came to Australia in 1955 with her geologist husband. She worked as a consultant for the Bureau of Mineral Resources in Canberra until the 1980s but from the 1970s she was a Research Associate for the Australian Museum in Sydney where she curated their extraordinary plant fossil collection of 12,000 specimens.

However, it was the book The Greening of Gondwana (1986), and later After the Greening (1994), with magical photographs of fossil plant life in sedimentary rocks that brought fossil plants to public attention. And particularly the way Mary was able to explain many of the ancient origins of plants that still exist via our Gondwana heritage.

Taking up this story, the group will go plant fossil hunting led by the group's President Dr Morrie Duggan, a geologist. They will inspect one of many such places in Australia where plant fossils can be found.  The plant fossils are found in sandstone and siltstone associated with coal in the Basin Creek Formation, a geological unit within the Nymboida Coal Measures which are part of the Clarence Moreton Basin. The coal measures have been mined for coal in the past.

Fossil plants were first noted in the Nymboida area in 1958 by N.G. de Jersey. Subsequently Keith Holmes, latterly with his wife Heidi Anderson, also a palaeobotanist, have made many collecting trips to the Nymboida quarries. By 2013, their private collection numbered over 2600 selected slabs with many displaying two or more fossil plants. Indeed, Keith recently published that using his collection, with 58 genera, 105 species and 28 forms described, principally from the Middle Triassic period. These descriptions are contained in a series of articles in Proceedings of the Linnean Society of NSW published between 2000 and 2010. All type material and specimens illustrated or mentioned in the articles and from the Nymboida collection are housed in the Australian Museum, College Street, Sydney.

The group hopes to have both Keith and Heidi there on the day. They are also scheduled as our guest speakers at the Coffs Harbour Group’s regular day meeting with a talk entitled Fossil Plants from the Triassic of Gondwana. Details here.

For further information, and to RSVP to the Field trip, contact the Coffs Harbour group secretary Rob on rob8milehill@yahoo.com.au or 0427 710 449. Rob will provide information about the meeting location & possible car pooling.

The home page shows the Nymboida Coal Mine quarry. Photo M Duggan.