3.In the Lower Ordovician to basal mid-Ordovi- cian limestones (and to a lesser extent inshore sandstones) of Sibumasu there is a fauna of up to nine nautiloid species which are supposedly strongly similar to those of North China (and platform Australia); this is augmented by one brachiopod (Spanodonta) The cephalopod fau- nas of North China (Yellow River Province) are different from those of South China (Yangtze River Province) according to Chen and Teichert (1988, Fig.2) related, respectively, to low lati- tudes or tropical areas, and mid-latitudes or tem- perate zones. (ibid. p.153). These differences may lie behind the supposed placement of North and South China plates at quite different palaeolatitudes (e.g., Burrett et al., 1990; Laurie and Burrett, 1992).