ORDOVICIAN SPONGE SPICULES FROM NEW-SOUTH-WALES, AUSTRALIA

An abundant, varied, and well-preserved assemblage of discrete sponge spicules of late Ordovician age is described from the Malongulli Formation of central New South Wales. It is associated with one of the most diverse Ordovician siliceous sponge faunas known. The assemblage occurs in allochthonous limestone blocks within breccia deposits of a predominantly graptolitic and spiculitic siltstone succession, and is composed mainly of hexactinellid spicule types. Included are a number of distinctive forms, recognized as new taxa-Silicunculus bengtsoni, Kometia cruciformis, Chelispongia prima, and Pseudolancicula exigua. All are new genera except Silicunculus Bengtson, 1986, which was previously described from the upper Cambrian of Queensland. The problematical Anomaloides reticulatus Ulrich, 1878, is reported for the first time from Australia. A wide variety of other diagnostic, but more generalized, spicule types also occurs, including stauractines, pinnular and nonpinnular pentactines and hexactines, ornamented oxyhexasters and echinhexasters, clavules, anchorate root-tufts, and uncinates. The pinnular pentactines may be assigned to the form genus Palaeorubus Ishiga (in Ishiga et al., 1987), interpreted incorrectly by Ishiga as a radiolarian. The sponges, discrete spicules and radiolarians of these limestone clasts were transported in debris flows to a basinal setting from peri-platform oozes that formed on the flanks of the shallow offshore island-arc platform of the Molong High.