Swimming in Stone is John Long's very readable personal account of his encounter with the remarkable fossil fish of Gogo, along with a history of their discovery and their palaeontological importance. Since 1940, forty or so Devonian fish species have been recovered from nodules found around the remote Go Go Station in the Kimberley region of northwestern Western Australia. The carbonate nodules developed in muddy basinal deposits on the seaward side of the extensive tropical barrier reef of the Canning Basin.
The nodules developed around the rotting remains of many different kinds of fish but especially armoured placoderms and lungfish and form one of the most spectacular fossil finds ever made. The preservation of the fish and their preparation by acetic acid etching of the limestone nodules has revealed beautifully preserved 3D structures, especially the head regions which emerge from the rock looking remarkably intact.
As a result, many of the fish are wonderfully photogenic and have graced the covers of scientific journals both academic and popular and even, according to John Long, the cover of a grunge rock album called ‘Roottmann’ by Slub, a Melbourne band formed in 1985. Apparently the band saw a picture of the Gogo lungfish Chirodipterus on the cover of New Scientist as an introduction to an article about the Gogo fish by John Long.
The remarkable history of fossil discoveries at Gogo is well told by Long. Apparently, it was the Russian born German geologist Curt Teichert who first found the Gogo fossils in 1940. In 1937 he took up a post at the University of Western Australia and was mapping in the Kimberley region and recorded ‘Coccostean remains in concretions (common)’. But the specimens he collected languished in store until serendipitously, in 1963, they were shown to Harry Toombs of London's Natural History Museum, who was on a fleeting visit as he returned to the UK from a collecting trip in Australia. Toombs recognized that the Gogo fossils were significantly better preserved than anything else he had collected. He got permission to delay his return so he could visit the Gogo site and assess its potential. As a result, half a ton were shipped back to London and Toombs immediately set to work to prepare them, using his development of acid etching technique.
And this is just the beginning of the story with which Long has a considerable personal involvement. The second part of this attractive book deals with the scientific significance of the Gogo fish which Long sets in an historic context with players such as Stensio, Jarvik, Hennig and the London ‘gang of four’. Well illustrated with drawings and photos of the fossils, it all makes for good reading and is highly recommended, especially to any young ‘wannabe’ palaeontologists. The addition of notes, bibliography and index make this a useful reference for further investigation of the wonderful diversity of fish that lived in and around a Devonian tropical barrier reef.
