A bibliographic information storage and retrieval system for Geological reports

Abstract

A bibliographic information retrieval system consisting of there major programmes has been developed for the storage and retrieval of references to the geology of New South Wales. Associated with this retrieval system, a numerical system for locally specification based on 1 : 50, 000 map sheets has been devised, a thesaurus of geological keywords developed and new indexing techniques implemented

Recent study of Early Cretaceous foraminiferal faunas in Australia and other parts of the Austral Biogeoprovince has revealed the presence of ancestral forms of several genera known so far from the Late Cretaceous or Tertiary to Holocene. These originally Austral elements became cosmopolitan or remained confined to the Southern Hemisphere. The distribution pattern of Austral foraminifera indicates the existence of definite dispersal routes directly affected by the changing palaeogeography due to continental drift. The oldest possible way of dispersal was via the Mesozoic analogue of the cold Humboldt Current in the eastern South Pacific Ocean along the western coast of South America, and later, after the opening of the Atlantic Ocean, via the analogue of the cold Benguela Current along the western coast of Africa. Southward warm currents were responsible for the presence of Tethyan planktonic foraminifera, which otherwise showed definite latitudinal restriction in their distribution.