Australia: The Land Where Time Began

A biography of the Australian continent 

Kockatea Shale

The Kockatea Shale is characterised by marine rocks deposited along the coast of Western Australia during the Lower Triassic. Near the township of Geraldton in the Perth Basin of southwestern Western Australia there are outcrops around the Greenough River there are limited areas of these rocks that were deposited in a shallow near-shore marine environment, and is also found in boreholes offshore, indicating it may have formed during a marine incursion that was probably of short duration on the Western Australian margin.

It is believed to be a stratigraphical contemporary of the Blina Shale. Cephalopods and bivalves have been found in greyish shale that grades upwards from fine basal sandstone. A probable age of Induan-Olenekian is indicated by mollusc faunas, especially ammonoids,

Sources & Further reading

1. Kear, B.P. & Hamilton-Bruce, R.J., 2011, Dinosaurs in Australia, Mesozoic life from the southern continent, CSIRO Publishing.