Early and middle cretaceous angiosperm pollen grains from Australia

Abstract

This paper describes and reports dispersed angiosperm pollen grains from Barremian-basal Aptian to basal Cenomanian sedimentary formations in the Eromanga and Surat Basins of the Great Australian basin in Queensland, South Australia, and Northern Territory. It also summarises the stratigraphic distribution of contemporaneous angiosperm pollen species previously described and reported from the Great Australian Basin in northeastern and central Australia. The earliest known angiosperm ( Clavatipollenites) now is recorded from the Barremian to Aptian Cyclosporites hughesii Zone. It is joined by monosulcate Asteropollis in the early Albian Crybelosporites striatus Zone. At least 3 tricolpate and 2 tricolporoidate species appear first—together with Liliacidites—in the middle Albian Coptospora paradoxa Zone. The number of species increases rapidly in the upper part of that zone and peaks in the late Albian-Cenomanian Phimopollenites pannosus Zone, with at least 7 mono- and bisulcate, 23 tricolpate, 8 tricolporoidate, and perhaps 2 hexaperturate species and/or varieties. No sediments of younger Cretaceous age are preserved in the Great Australian Basin. This record may represent only a fraction of the angiosperm taxa represented in the Cretaceous flora of Queensland, but it shows that northeastern and central Australia carried a considerably diverse angiosperm vegetation during the late Albian and early Cenomanian. The following new species are formally proposed: Dryadopollis inconspicuus, Fraxinoipollenites fragilis, Fraxinoipollenites helbyi, Tricolporoidites wardii, and Tricolporoidites warringtonii.