Devonian–Early Carboniferous miospore biostratigraphy of the Amazon Basin, Northern Brazil

Abstract

A miospore biozonation, including 17 new interval zones, is proposed for Devonian–Early Carboniferous stratigraphic sections in the Amazon Basin. It results from a detailed review of the coeval miospore assemblages and biohorizons in the basin. The combined use of selected Euramerican and Western Gondwanan forms as zonal and characteristic taxa permits accurate subdivision, dating and correlation of Amazon Basin palyniferous strata in terms of equivalent miospore zones of Western Europe and the Old Red Sandstone Continent. The miospore data provide new insights into such varied issues as e.g. the age and stratigraphic relationships of regional rock units, the detection and dating of intervening hiatuses, condensed sedimentary sections, anoxic phases, and resedimentation cycles. Although primarily devised to serve as a regional biozonation, the scheme presented here has a unifying character because it can be applied to other Paleozoic basins in Brazil and Western Gondwanan regions where similar miospore successions are documented. A miospore assemblage zone recently described for the early Late Carboniferous interval of the Amazon Basin is also partly reviewed and integrated with the new biozonation for the older sections.