Late Early Permian Fusulines along Gongendani, South of Mt. Ryozen, Shiga Prefecture, Central Japan

Abstract

Twenty species of fusulines and ten species of non-fusuline foraminifers have been identified from 20 limestone samples along Gongendani, a valley south of Mt. Ryozen, Shiga Prefecture, Japan. They are dominated by Pseudofusulina norikurensis, Ps. isomie, and Acervoschwagerina gongendaniensis, and considered to be late Cisuralian (late early Permian) based on their coexistence with five subordinate species reported from the Yakhtashian (Artinskian) and the Bolorian (lower Kungurian) in the southeast Pamir and other Tethyan regions. Taxonomic composition of the schwagerinids of Gongendani and other faunas in the Mino Terrane is considerably different from that of coeval faunas in the Permian Akiyoshi Terrane. It is highly probable that Acervoschwagerina is Yakhtashian and possibly ranging up to Bolorian. Thirteen species of fusulines including two new species, Acervoschwagerina gongendaniensis Kobayashi and Cuniculinella omiensis Kobayashi are described systematically.