Late Ordovician sponges from the Malongulli Formation of central New South Wales, Australia

One of the most diverse Late Ordovician sponge faunas known, and certainly the most diverse Ordovician sponge fauna known from Australasia, is from the Malongulli Formation of central New South Wales. These fossils occur in blocks within breccias embedded in the graptolitic and spiculitic siltstone succession. They occur at three major localities along the Belubula River 200 km west of Sydney where a total of 44 species (39 new) represent (26 new) of demosponges, calcareous sponges and hexactinellid sponges. Lithistid demosponges are the most common and diverse. The New South Wales sponge assemblage provides a unique record of deeper-water carbonate environments at the margin of an 'island-arc' shelf sequence and certainly suggests that deeper-water assemblages are far more diverse than currently documented. -from Authors