Early to Middle Devonian miospores from northern Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Well-preserved palynomorph assemblages are recovered from the Devonian Jauf and Jubah formations in five shallow boreholes in the northern part of Saudi Arabia. These fully cored boreholes overlap stratigraphically to form a 1640 ft composite sequence. Miospores dominate the palynological assemblages of most samples. The assemblages are mainly composed of trilete spores but also contain cryptospores and monolete spores. One new genus, sixteen new species and two new varieties of miospores are described from the studied assemblages: Artemopyra inconspicua nov. sp., Artemopyra recticosta nov. sp., Camarozonotriletes filatoffii nov. sp., Camarozonotriletes rugulosus nov. sp., Cymbohilates baqaensis nov. sp., Cymbohilates comptulus nov. sp., Cymbohilates heteroverrucosus nov. sp., Cymbosporites asymmetricus nov. sp., Dibolisporites pilatus nov. sp., Dictyotriletes biornatus nov. sp., Gneudnaspora divellomedia (Chibrikova) Balme, 1988 var. divellomedia, Gneudnaspora divellomedia (Chibrikova) Balme, 1988 var. minor nov. var., Latosporites ovalis nov. sp., Scylaspora costulosa nov. sp., Squamispora arabica nov. gen. and sp., Stellatispora multicostata nov. sp., Zonotriletes armillatus nov. sp. and Zonotriletes simplicissimus nov. sp. Their stratigraphic distribution is compared to the well-established Devonian West European zonation of Streel et al. (1987) (Streel, M., Higgs, K.T., Loboziak, S., Riegel, W., Steemans, P., 1987. Spore stratigraphy and correlation with faunas and floras in the type marine Devonian of the Ardenne-Rhenish region. Review of Palaeobotany and Palynology 50, 211–219). A late Pragian-Givetian age is suggested for this sequence. No characteristic Eifelian taxa are recorded, but this could be explained by a gap in palyniferous samples.