Danielle Shean

MSc candidate

Project title
Denizens of the Caves of SE Australia During the Pleistocene: The Buchan Region

Supervisor
Prof. Pat Vickers-Rich & Dr. Tom Rich

Research

The Buchan region in southeastern Victoria hosts a range of Pleistocene to Recent aged caves etched into the Devonian limestones that blanket the area. Many of those caves have over the last century yielded a range of bone concentrations. Shean's research involves the study of both the micro and macro fauna from several of these caves, one in particular that has produced rare and excellent skull material of the extinct, large marsupial, Palorchestes. Palorchestes is Australia's equivalent to the South American Ground Sloths - probably a trunked marsupial. Understanding the relationships and the anatomy of this rare genus is of prime importance to this project. Shean is also mapping within selected caves to clarify just how the vertebrate assemblages were concentrated and preserved - the taphonomy of such deposits.