Palynology and the Carboniferous‐Permian boundary in Australia and other Gondwana continents

Abstract There is palynological evidence that the broad structure of terrestrial floras was greatly modified in a relatively short period of time near the end of the Carboniferous or beginning of the Permian Period. This major plant evolutionary event is marked by a sharp increase in abundance and diversity of gymnosperm pollen, especially taeniate forms, near the base of the Orenburgian Stage and its stratigraphic equivalents in the U.S.S.R., and within the Autunian in Western Europe. A similar trend is also apparent in the standard United States sequence, perhaps coinciding more or less with the base of the Wolfcampian Stage. In Australian sedimentary basins, analogous changes coincide with the beginning of post‐glacial sedimentation and have been used to define the base of palynostratigraphic units in Western and eastern Australian sequences. The Western Australian unit, currently referred to informally as Unit III, contains early Sakmarian ammonoids in its upper part. It is concluded that the base of ...

[1]  J. Utting.  Lower Karroo pollen and spore assemblages from the coal measures and underlying sediments of the Siankondobo coalfield, Mid‐Zambezi valley, Zambia , 1978 .

[2]  G. Clayton,et al.  Carboniferous miospores of Western Europe: illustration and zonation. , 1977 .

[3]  G. Playford,et al.  Carboniferous and Permian palynostratigraphy in Australia and Antarctica: a review , 1977 .

[4]  B. Runnegar,et al.  Late Palaeozoic faunas of Australia , 1976 .

[5]  J. Utting.  Pollen and spore assemblages in the Luwumbu Coal Formation (Lower Karroo) of the North Luangwa Valley, Zambia, and their biostratigraphic significance , 1976 .

[6]  Nguyen Duc Tien,et al.  Palyno-stratigraphy of the Ketewaka coalfield (Lower Permian), Tanzania , 1973 .

[7]  W. M. Furnish.  Permian Stage Names , 1973 .

[8]  S. Gupta,et al.  Palynology of the garner formation (Strawn series) of north‐central Texas , 1972 .

[9]  G. A. Cooper,et al.  Dating and Correlating the Permian of the Glass Mountains in Texas , 1972 .

[10]  D. Kirkland,et al.  Cordaitina pollen from Pennsylvanian strata of Oklahoma and Texas , 1970 .

[11]  S. Gupta.  Miospores from the desmoinesian‐missourian boundary formations of texas and the age of the salesville formation , 1970 .

[12]  Paul W. Nygreen,et al.  Morphological variation of Potonieisporites in a late Pennsylvanian florule , 1967 .

[13]  Katherine M.M Jizba.  Late Paleozoic bisaccate pollen from the United States Midcontinent area , 1962 .

[14]  B. Glenister,et al.  The Permian ammonoids of Australia , 1961 .