Trackways of Tetrapod Vertebrates from the Upper Devonian of Victoria, Australia

Abstract

THREE distinct trackways of tetrapod vertebrates were discovered late in 1971 by one of us (N. A. W.) in strata of the Genoa River Beds at lat. 37° 19′ S, long. 149° 23′ E, in eastern Victoria, Australia. The Genoa River Beds were considered by Dun¹ on the basis of plant fossils and Hall² on stratigraphic relationships to be of Upper Devonian age. Hall suggested they are the non-marine lateral equivalents of the Merimbula Formation which contains a marine fauna indicative of the Upper Devonian, most probably Frasnian. Following the discovery of the trackways, J. G. Douglas (Victorian Mines Department, unpublished report 1972/3, 1972) located an assemblage of Upper Devonian plants in the Genoa River Beds at approximately the same stratigraphic horizon as the trackways and within 850 m of them. The flora includes sphenopsid stems of possibly more than one species and fragments of fernlike leaves referred to by Dun¹ as Archaeopteris howittii.