Cretaceous palynomorphs from the James Ross Island area, Antarctica - a pilot study

Faunas of ammonites and bivalves, aquatic floras of dinocysts and prasinophycean/chlorophycean algae, and land-plant florules of spores, pollen, and fungal palynomorphs are reported from Cretaceous sedimentary rocks of James Ross Island, Dundee Island, and Cape Longing, Antarctic Peninsula. Ages add...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Dettmann, M. E., Thomson, M. R.A.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: 1987
Subjects:
Online Access:https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:718485
Description
Summary:Faunas of ammonites and bivalves, aquatic floras of dinocysts and prasinophycean/chlorophycean algae, and land-plant florules of spores, pollen, and fungal palynomorphs are reported from Cretaceous sedimentary rocks of James Ross Island, Dundee Island, and Cape Longing, Antarctic Peninsula. Ages adduced from the megafaunas are mostly verified by the dinocyst floras. Mid- to Late Cretaceous dinocyst assemblages of the Antarctic Peninsula confirm wide distribution, in southern high latitude oceanic regions, of the successive Muderongia, Heterosphaeridium, and Isabelidinium floras. Contemporaneous land-plant floras comprised a succession of rainforest communities having affiliations with vegetation fringing the southern Atlantic Ocean and in Australasia. Mid-Cretaceous-araucarean/podocarp rainforests were modified during the Campanian by the introduction of Nothofagus. Evidence is advanced for step-wise migration of certain cryptogam and angiosperm elements within southern Gondwana. The palynofloras comprise 62 cryptogam-spore, 54 pollen, 80 dinocyst, and nine prasinophycean/chlorophycean taxa. A trilete spore species, Kraeuselisporites laceratus Norris 1968 (senior synonym of K. jubatus Dettmann and Playford 1968) is newly combined with the genus Perotrilites Erdtmann ex Couper 1953. - from Authors