Gogo Reef
From Palaeos
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The Gogo reef looks, from the air, like a reef that someone left out in the Australian desert. Since Australians tend to be a rather straightforward folk, that's exactly what it is. The Gogo Reef is in the northwestern part of the State of Western Australia in what is vaguely referred to as the Kimberly District. It is conveniently located near nothing. There is no road. It is, in fact, so far from any town with a name recognizeable by non-Australians that it would be pointless to get any more specific. Even if we recognized the name, we would inevitably pronounce it wrong, and the Australians would laugh at us -- not a pretty sound. The Gogo is truly in the middle of nowhere.
The whole business is very straightforward and Australian. During the Frasnian, the Gogo Reef was in the water, where it belonged. Things died. Being dead, they fell off the reef and ended up on anoxic bottoms. Tough luck. On the bottom, the chemistry and temperature got them very slowly covered with precipitating limestone. There's no soft tissue preservation, mind you, but no crushing, either. The fossils are completely three-dimensional and cemented into limestone nodules. The Australians pick up the nodules, tap them briskly, and -- pop! -- there's your fish, eurypterid, or whatever. They then take the thing home and reverse the natural process by very slowly dissolving the limestone with dilute acetic acid. Then they turn on the light, open a beer, and very slowly begin to describe the fish, eurypterid, or whatever. Later, sometimes decades later, they turn off the light, kick the empties out of the way, and publish -- long after the rest of us have developed ulcers and bald spots from waiting -- or have ended up on our own anoxic bottoms.
credits: ATW041123 public domain. This page MAK061101
