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The mystery of the K. Prendergast manuscript
Full text linkIn the 1930s a rising star in the constellation of Australian palaeontologists had been born. Hard working, attentive to detail and very bright, Kathleen Laura Prendergast seemed destined to attain a solid place in the high ranks of Australian geology. Winner of many awards and scholarships, she carried her academic career through to a PhD at Cambridge University. Then, abruptly her course changed and in a relatively brief time she gained an MD and served as a medical officer in the British Army. Left behind as a consequence of that career change were a manuscript and her research collections, the former seemingly important, possibly even critical to an evolving understanding of Permian brachiopods. That manuscript was thought to have been commenced, possibly finished, but then lost through misadventure. The star collapsed, but a myth remained. This paper is the result of an exploration of the trajectory of the career of Kathleen Prendergast. It attempts to resolve the story of the “lost” manuscript and an analysis of what might have been. This investigation involved The Royal Society of Tasmania and the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, the Sedgwick Museum of Earth Sciences, Cambridge University, the Royal Society of Western Australia and the University of Western Australia amongst others
Tropical palms and arums at near-polar latitudes: fossil pollen evidence from the Tamar and Macquarie grabens, northern Tasmania
Full text linkWe illustrate and discuss fossil pollen evidence for two mostly tropical extant plant families in the Tamar Valley, north of Launceston, northern Tasmania, and the Macquarie Harbour Graben on the west coast of Tasmania. These are palms (Arecaceae) producing disulcate pollen (Dicolpopollis spp.) and an incompletely zonisulcate pollen (Proxapertites cf. operculatus) identified as a fossil arum (Araceae). Both fossil pollen types add to the growing body of evidence that warm to hot conditions allowed tropical monocots belonging to these two families to grow at high palaeolatitudes (c. 65°S) during the Late Paleocene and/or Early Eocene in Tasmania and even closer to the pole (c. 70°S) during the Late Cretaceous in central and southern mainland Australia
Council Meeting Minutes for the year 2015
No full textMinutes of the Council Meetings of The Royal Society of Tasmania for the year 2015.
From original documents held at The Royal Society of Tasmani
Book Review : The Library at the End of the World: Natural Science and its Illustrators Edited by Anita Hansen and Margaret Davies
Full text linkThe Royal Society of Tasmania (RST), the oldest scientific society in Australia and New Zealand, was founded in
1843 and quickly established its own library. In 1845 the Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen’s Land wrote to the Royal, the Antiquarian and the Linnean societies in London, of which he was a member, seeking books for the RST’s library. By 1849 the collection held 250 volumes. As the Society grew, the library acquired books more purposefully, emphasising Tasmanian natural history but keeping abreast of national and international publications. In its first century the library was the major public source of natural history knowledge in and about this remote intellectual outpost. The Library at the End of the World reviews and illustrates some of the library’s treasure
Contents page for Volume 149 and Council and Office Bearers from March 2015 to March 2016
Full text linkContents page for Volume 149, 2015 & Council and Office Bearers from March 2015 to March 201
Less than 50 millimetres of rainfall in the previous month predicts fire in Tasmanian rainforest
Full text linkRainforests can be eliminated by repeated fire, so we need to know when they require protection. We use data from 11 extensive fires in western Tasmania to determine the meteorological conditions in which rainforest will burn. The variables that discriminated between fires that burned rainforest and those confined to other vegetation types were the amount of rainfall in the previous 30 days, the amount of rainfall in the previous 60 days and the soil dryness index (SDI). Our analyses confirmed a previously-suggested critical figure of 50 mm of rain in a month, showed that this figure pertains to the month previous to the fire, and showed that the forest fire danger index (FFDI) was not a good predictor, with fires burning rainforest on days with an FFDI at the lower end of the scale (Lake Macintosh) and not burning rainforest on days when the FFDI was at the higher end of the scale (Reynolds Creek and Giblin River). We conclude that it is important to respond to dry conditions in fire response planning for areas with rainforest, rather than relying on the FFDI
Historical ecology: a critique of François Péron’s account of Southern Elephant Seals, Mirounga leonina (Linn.),
Full text linkFrançois Péron’s quite detailed observations of Southern Elephant Seals, Mirounga leonina (Linn.), at King Island, Tasmania, in December 1802, are considered in the light of current knowledge of this species. Acute observations of the elephant seal and its behaviour, as well as remarks about its life history, which appears to have differed slightly from that observed recently at sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island, the nearest current breeding site, were recorded. There is a suggestion that the breeding season at King Island may have been earlier than where Southern Elephant Seals now occur in the sub-Antarctic, possibly due to King Island being closer to the equator. Péron noted that Aborigines at Port Jackson called them Mirourong, from which their current generic name was derived, and they still frequent this coast. He does not mention seeing small immature elephant seals at King Island in December when this age class hauls out to moult on Macquarie
Island. The presence then of (probably exaggeratedly) large males again suggests that the annual cycle at King Island may have been in advance of that observed at Macquarie Island today. Péron’s growth rates were far in excess of those now known for the species anywhere: how he arrived at them he does not record; possibly this and other information was related to him by the sealers
Tasmanian University Rugby Union Football Club Index: University of Tasmania Collection
Full text linkThis index lists items related to the Tasmanian University Rugby Union Football Club from 1968 - 1970. Includes correspondence, membership list, Intervarsity matches, newsletters & reports. From University Collection UA11
Torleiv Hytten Indexes: University of Tasmania Collection
Full text linkIndex UT6 lists items related to Torleiv Hytten(1890-1980) C.M.G. MA. who was born in Norway and emigrated to
Australia in 1910 and after working in various jobs, including journalism (1920-26)
he was appointed lecturer in economics at the University of Tasmania in 1925. He was
also Director of Tutorial Classes 1928-32. He was economic adviser to the Tasmanian
Government 1929-35, economic adviser to the Bank of N.S.W. 1935-49, delegate to the
16th Assembly of the League of Nations 1935, Chairman of the Australian National
Committee of the International Chamber of Commerce 1949. He also served on other
Government Committees and advised on other matters including the Tasmanian
Commonwealth Grants, Tasmanian State Employment Council, Tasmanian Railways and
Queensland transport problems. He received the C.M.G in 1953, Knight Order of St. Olav
(Norway) in 1951, Chev. Order of the Crown of Belgium on 1957.From University Collection UT6.
Index UT98 lists typed summaries of lectures on economics, with alterations by Torleiv Hytten, used between 1925-33. Also contains Australian budgets (no date). From University Collection UT 9
Professor Samuel Warren Carey Index: University of Tasmania Collection
Full text linkThis index lists Professor Samuel Warren Carey's notes on carboniferous fossils and a bibliography of Australian palaeontology.
From University Collection UT 31