The minimum age of the Goat Paddock Meteor Crater is Mesozoic, not early Eocene —the pollen and spore evidence

The Goat Paddock Meteor Crater located on the southern edge of the Precambrian to Paleozoic Kimberley Plateau is one of several well-preserved impact structures in northwest Western Australia. Mixed-age plant microfossil assemblages (microfloras) preserved in carbonaceous lacustrine mudstones underlying the now dry crater plain include numerous fossil pollen and spore species (morphospecies) that are restricted to the Late Cretaceous period, in particular Proteaceae pollen (<i>Proteacidites</i>), as well as single specimens of morphospecies that last occur in the Early Cretaceous (<i>Nevesisporites vallatus</i>) and, less certain, Late Jurassic (<i>Dejerseysporites</i> cf. <i>D. biannuliverrucatus</i>, <i>Exesipollenites</i> cf. <i>E. tumulus</i>). These Mesozoic morphotaxa and morphospecies ranging into or first appearing in the Paleogene are highly likely to have come from plants growing on the Proterozoic rocks on the crater walls and around shoreline of the paleolake in the crater basin. Accordingly, the meteor impact is likely to have occurred during or before the Mesozoic, not (as published) in the Early Eocene. Unresolved issues are centred on the dispositional history of sediments accumulating in the crater lake, including whether this began in the Late Jurassic or the Late Cretaceous.