Early Devonian Conodonts from the Southern Thomson Orogen and Northern Lachlan Orogen in North-western New South Wales

Abstract

Early Devonian (Lochkovian) conodonts, recovered from carbonate intervals within the Amphitheatre Group of the northern Cobar Basin (Lachlan Orogen) and from unnamed correlative strata encountered in drillcore from Louth in the southern Thomson Orogen in north-western New South Wales, include the biostratigraphically important taxon Caudicriodus woschmidti. Associated species include Belodella resima, Caudicriodus spp. indet., Oulodus astriatus?, Oulodus spicula, Oulodus sp., “Ozarkodina” planilingua, Panderodus unicostatus, Wurmiella excavata, and Zieglerodina remscheidensis. These conodont faunas provide the first biostratigraphically constrained correlations between rocks of the Cobar Basin (Cobar Supergroup) in the northern Lachlan Orogen and subsurface strata in the adjacent southern Thomson Orogen.