Australian Fossil Mammal Site - Naracoorte World Heritage values
The Australian Fossil Mammal Sites (Riversleigh/Naracoorte) was inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1994. The World Heritage criteria against which the Australian Fossil Mammal Sites (Riversleigh/Naracoorte) was listed remain the formal criteria for this property. These criteria have been included in the Values Table below. The World Heritage criteria are periodically revised and the criteria against which the property was listed in 1994 are not necessarily identical with the current criteria.
Examples of the World Heritage values for which the Australian Fossil Mammal Sites (Riversleigh/Naracoorte) was listed are included in the Values Table for each criterion. These examples are illustrative of the World Heritage values of the property, and they do not necessarily constitute a comprehensive list of these values. Other sources including the nomination document and references listed below the Values Table are available and could be consulted for a more detailed understanding of the World Heritage values of the Australian Fossil Mammal Sites (Riversleigh/Naracoorte).
Criteria
Outstanding examples representing major stages of the earth's history, including the record of life, significant on-going geological processes in the development of landforms, or significant geomorphic or physiographic features.
Riversleigh and Naracoorte are outstanding examples representing major stages of earth's history, including the record of life, particularly the middle to late Tertiary evolution of the mammals in Australia (Riversleigh), and an outstanding record of terrestrial vertebrate life spanning the last 170,000 years (Naracoorte), and significant on-going geological processes.
The World Heritage values of Riversleigh include:
Fossil deposits which:
- include abundant and diverse fossils, including complete crania and disarticulated skeletons representing most age classes of the known extinct late Pleistocene mammals of Australia;
- span the middle to late Pleistocene time period, representing the development of modern fauna;
- have a high quality of preservation which enables both reconstruction and detailed anatomical descriptions and functional morphology of both crania and post-cranial skeletal elements.
Outstanding examples representing significant on-going ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of terrestrial, fresh water, coastal and marine ecosystems and communities of plants and animals.
Riversleigh and Naracoorte are outstanding examples representing significant ongoing ecological and biological processes in the evolution and development of Australia's mammal fauna, including the richest Australian, and one of the world's richest, Oligo-Miocene mammal records, linking that period (15-25 million years) to the predominantly modern assemblages of the Pliocene and Pleistocene (Riversleigh), and a record of faunal change spanning two ice ages, highlighting the impacts of both climatic change and man on Australia's mammals (Naracoorte).
The World Heritage values of Riversleigh include:
The cave fauna deposits which includes fossil assemblages and sequences that:
- date to the middle to late Pleistocene period, providing an important southern hemisphere site for the study of megafaunal extinction;
- provide a window on faunal change spanning at least two ice ages and culminating in the appearance of humans on the Australian continent;
- include representation of unique Gondwanan groups such as extinct madtsoiid snakes and monotremes due to the high quality of the preservation of most of the fossil material;
- include a large quantity of individuals represented and a high quality of preservation due to the deposition of the fossils in a "pit fall trap" environment;
- provide further evidence that the Australian fauna has evolved mainly in isolation;
- are important in understanding the impacts of Milankovitch climatic cycles and humans on Australia's mammal fauna;
- include DNA which has been found and extracted from examples of the fossil material with a view to reconstructing detailed phylogenies for the extinct thylacoleonids (marsupial lions) and the extinct browsing sthenurine kangaroos.
Heritage values
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