Australian Fossil Mammal Site - Riversleigh 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:
- contain an exceptional abundance and diversity of species and individual specimens;
- include important and unique examples of middle to late Tertiary mammal assemblages;
- demonstrate a rich Oligo-Miocene mammal record, including representation of rainforest species;
- represent unusually wide temporal periods within the fossil record, including timeframes when Australia has been the most isolated continent on earth;
- have a high quality of preservation of specimens; and
- include evidence of links between the Australian mammal fauna with faunas outside Australia;
- diverse Tertiary sediments which contain the fossil assemblages, particularly the Oligo-Miocene cave, fissure and alluvial tufa deposits which are geological antecedents to similar carbonate deposits that still form in the region today.
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 fossil mammal record, which shows continuity and the effects of evolutionary and environmental change over at least the last 20 million years;
- the quality and quantity of the fossil deposits, which has provided increased understanding of the past, present and possible future evolutionary path of many mammal species;
- the Oligo-Miocene mammal record, the richest for the continent and one of the richest in the world, which includes fossil assemblages and sequences that:
- provide evidence of temporal sequence of Oligo-Miocene rainforest mammals in Australia;
- link the Oligo-Miocene assemblages of central Australia and the dominantly modern assemblages of the Pliocene and Pleistocene of eastern Australia;
- provide evidence for the evolution of Australia's modern dry country mammal assemblages from ancestors within Australia's Oligo-Miocene rainforests;
- preserve an important sequence of mammal species from Tertiary rainforest biotas;
- provide a connection to other faunas within Australia
- show evolutionary and ecological continuity to other World Heritage properties within Australia;
- allow examination of community structure as well as the more conventional morphological and taxonomic study of particular individuals;
- preserve examples of unique Australian prehistoric animals over the last 25 million years, including marsupial lions, carnivorous kangaroos, diprotodontids, huge pythons, early ancestors of the Tasmanian tiger, platypuses, crocodiles and bats;
- provide an important collection of bat fossils in terms of the quantity and preservation of specimens;
- include the oldest known specimens of many of Australia's mammal families (e.g. feather tailed possums, marsupial moles, wombats, gliding possums) which are amongst the best known in the world due to their quantity and degree of preservation; and
- other fossil vertebrates and invertebrates, including some of which are Australia's oldest samples (e.g. millipedes, slaters and other arthropods).
Heritage values
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