The Wiluna Meteorite fall, Western Australia—2 September 1967

1970 ◽  
Vol 37 (292) ◽  
pp. 880-887 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. J. H. McCall ◽  
P. M. Jeffery
Keyword(s):  
Western Australia ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Field Investigation ◽  
Reasonable Estimate ◽  
Total Recovery ◽  
Nickel Iron ◽  
Australian Museum ◽  
Meteorite Fall ◽  
Western Australian

SummaryThe fall of a shower of meteorites numbering several hundred fragments at Wiluna, Western Australia, on the night of 2 September 1967, has been investigated. Although the dispersion ellipse had been largely obscured by removal of fragments before a party of scientists were able to make a field investigation, it has, nevertheless, been possible to make a reasonable estimate of the shower distribution pattern. In spite of this removal of fragments, a number of pieces of meteorite were still found in situ. The bulk of the total recovery is in the collections of the Western Australian Museum, and the physical characteristics of these masses and their petrography is described. In all, some 490 individual fusion-crust coated stones and a large number of broken stony fragments are known to have been recovered. The meteorite is an olivine bronzite chondrite remarkably rich in discrete nodules of nickel iron, up to an inch across, commonly aggregated with troilite. A full chemical analysis of this fresh meteoritic material has been supplied by the British Museum (Natural History).

A new siderolite from Bencubbin, Western Australia.

1932 ◽  
Vol 23 (136) ◽  
pp. 33-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward S. Simpson ◽  
D. G. Murray
Keyword(s):  
Western Australia ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Scientific Interest ◽  
The South ◽  
Main Mass ◽  
Australian Museum ◽  
South West ◽  
Government Laboratory ◽  
The Government ◽  
Western Australian

In July 1930 a fragment of this meteorite was received at the Government Laboratory, Perth, with a request from the sender that he should be informed of its nature and value. Realizing its scientific interest, one of the authors (E. S. S.) took advantage of a visit to Beneubbin (lat. 30° 48′ S., long. 117° 51′ E. ; about 150 miles NE. of Perth in the South-West Division) to interview the finder and suggest that the whole mass should be handed over to the Government Laboratory for examination, a specimen detached for the British Museum, and the main mass finally presented to the Western Australian Museum in Perth. This arrangement was agreed to.

Aspects of reproduction, and morphology of the penis, of Pseudantechinus woolleyae (Marsupialia : Dasyuridae)

2017 ◽  
Vol 65 (6) ◽  
pp. 357 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. A. Woolley
Keyword(s):  
Western Australia ◽  
Arid Regions ◽  
Wide Distribution ◽  
Erectile Tissue ◽  
Australian Museum ◽  
Seasonal Breeder ◽  
Males And Females ◽  
One Year ◽  
Western Australian

Woolley’s Pseudantechinus, P. woolleyae, has remained virtually unstudied in the 30 years since its recognition in 1988 as a species distinct from P. macdonnellensis. It has a wide distribution in arid regions of Western Australia. What little is known of its biology comes largely from studies carried out over the years 1988–91 on one wild-caught female and her offspring, and a few specimens held in the collection of the Western Australian Museum. P. woolleyae is a seasonal breeder and young are born from late July to early October. They mature when ~7 months old. Both males and females are potentially capable of breeding in more than one year. Males have accessory erectile tissue that does not form an appendage on the penis.

Palaemonella dijonesae sp. nov. (Crustacea: Decapoda: Pontoniinae) from Western Australia

Zootaxa ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 2372 (1) ◽  
pp. 151-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. J. BRUCE
Keyword(s):  
New Species ◽  
Western Australia ◽  
Type Locality ◽  
Sagami Bay ◽  
Australian Museum ◽  
Holotype Specimen ◽  
Single Figure ◽  
Western Australian ◽  
A New Species

A recent publication by Bruce (2008a) reported the presence of Palaemonella spinulata Yokoya, 1936 in the Dampier Archipelago, Western Australia. This report noted that “The holotype specimen from Misaki, Japan, is considered to be lost (Holthuis 1952; Bruce 1970; Okuno pers. comm.). The designation of a neotype would appear useful but one from Japanese or nearby waters would be more appropriate than one of the present specimens”. The brief description provided by Yokoya (1936), with only a single figure showing the whole specimen, antennule, antenna, mandible, second maxilliped and posterior telson, is inadequate for comparison with other species of the genus. This deficiency has now been rectified by Hayashi (2009) who has provided a detailed and well illustrated description of P. spinulata and designated a neotype from Sagami Bay, near Misaki, the type locality. This re-description immediately indicated that the Western Australian specimens were not conspecific and they are now described as a new species. The specimens are held in the collections of the Western Australian Museum, Perth.

Relationships between fabric, water retention, and strength of hard subsoils in the south of Western Australia

Soil Research ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 167 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. A. Kew ◽  
R. J. Gilkes ◽  
D. Evans
Keyword(s):  
Western Australia ◽  
Water Retention ◽  
Sandy Soils ◽  
Matric Potential ◽  
Clay Matrix ◽  
Plant Available Water ◽  
Western Australian ◽  
Quartz Grains ◽  
In Situ Weathering

Crop yield in the sandy soils of the Western Australian wheatbelt is influenced strongly by the plant-available water (PAW) and strength of subsoils. The fabric of hard subsoils of fluvial and aeolian origin has been compared with that of in situ saprolite materials that also occur as subsoils in Western Australia. A fabric classification was developed and relationships between, fabric, water retention, and strength were examined. The clay matrix of hard subsoils is denser and is less porous than in saprolite. Hard subsoils contain rounded quartz grains and transported, rounded aggregates of clay (spherites), while saprolite contains angular quartz grains in a more porous isotropic kaolin clay matrix developed by in situ weathering. At all matric potentials there were large differences in water retention between hard subsoils and saprolite. The dry and wet strengths of subsoils are lower than for saprolite but the strength of both materials is similarly affected by changes in water content and matric potential. A variety of factors including the size, shape, degree of sorting of quartz grains, distribution of dense clay matrix, and cementing by iron oxides or amorphous silica affect the strength of subsoils. The fabric classification is predictive of water retention and strength.

scholarly journals Collections without End

Museum Worlds ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 94-111
Author(s):  
Andrea Witcomb ◽  
Alistair Patterson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Western Australia ◽  
Aboriginal People ◽  
The State ◽  
Australian Aboriginal ◽  
Australian Museum ◽  
History Of ◽  
State Library ◽  
Private Collections ◽  
Western Australian

The discovery of five photographs in 2018 in the State Library of Western Australia led us to the existence of a forgotten private museum housing the collection of Captain Matthew McVicker Smyth in early-twentieth-century Perth. Captain Smyth was responsible for the selling of Nobel explosives used in the agriculture and mining industries. The museum contained mineral specimens in cases alongside extensive, aesthetically organized displays of Australian Aboriginal artifacts amid a wide variety of ornaments and decorative paintings. The museum reflects a moment in the history of colonialism that reminds us today of forms of dispossession, of how Aboriginal people were categorized in Australia by Western worldviews, and of the ways that collectors operated. Our re-creation brings back into existence a significant Western Australian museum and opens up a new discussion about how such private collections came into existence and indeed, in this instance, about how they eventually end.

An extension to the known range of the desert mouse Pseudomys desertor south into the Great Victoria Desert, Western Australia.

2003 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 95 ◽  
Author(s):  
DL Alpers ◽  
G Gaikhorst ◽  
C Lambert ◽  
T Fletcher ◽  
P.B.S. Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Western Australia ◽  
Nature Reserve ◽  
Arid Zone ◽  
Salting Out ◽  
North West ◽  
Australian Museum ◽  
Flinders Ranges ◽  
Queen Victoria ◽  
Mount Keith ◽  
Western Australian

THE desert mouse Pseudomys desertor is a medium sized rodent (15 – 30 g) which has a widespread distribution throughout the arid zone of Australia (Menkhorst and Knight 2001). It is considered locally abundant in habitats containing samphire, sedge, nitrebush or mature spinifex grasslands. A tolerance to disturbed habitat (from mining or grazing) has also been noted (Read et al. 1999). The distribution of the species once extended from the Murray-Darling through the Flinders Ranges to the Gibson and Great Sandy Deserts, to the west coast and onto Bernier Island (Read et al. 1999; Menkhorst and Knight 2001). Since European colonisation there has been a contraction of the species’ range to the central deserts (Kerle 1995; Read et al. 1999). In Western Australia, the most southerly historical or contemporary record, is from the Wanjarri Nature Reserve (near Mount Keith), 370 km north of Kalgoorlie (D. Pearson pers. comm.; Western Australian Museum fauna database: http://203.30.234.168/). Recently, however, a suspected P. desertor was caught north-west of Queen Victoria Springs (QVS) in the Great Victoria Desert (GPS 30o 03’ 56’’S; 122o 55’ 28’’E), approximately 350 km to the south-east of its most southern known locality. The specimen had the distinctive buff-orange eye ring, size and general features of P. desertor described in Kerle (1995) and Menkhorst and Knight (2001). Prior to release of the specimen, an ear biopsy was obtained for DNA investigation and genomic DNA was extracted from the biopsy via a variation on the salting out procedure of Miller et al. (1988).

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