Late Pliocene-Early Pleistocene Charophyte Gyrogonites from Mudstone Horizon Underlying Volcanic Ash Beds of Northwest Himalaya: Palaeoecological and Palaeoenvironmental Implications

Abstract

In this paper, a good number of charophyte specimens and angiospermae seeds have been documented from the mudstone horizon underlying the geochronologically dated volcanic ash beds exposed about 0.375 km northwest of Badakhetar village in Samba district of the Jammu region, northwest Himalaya. By using the morphological characteristics (equatorial axis, distance from apical pore to equatorial axis, isopolarity index, anisopolarity index, width of convolution, angle between convolution and equatorial axis, number of convolutions, vertical and oblique line spiral, size, shape, basal pore and apex morphology) of charophytes, these specimens have been identified and tentatively referred as Chara rantzieni, Charaglobularis globularis, Chara globularis aspera (Characontraria), Hornichara maslovi, Lamprothamnium papulosum, Lychnothamnus breviovatus and Boraginocarpus lakhanpalii (Angiospermae seed). The reported species of charophytes are used here in the present study for Palaeoecological and Palaeoenvironmental studies. Keywords: Charophyte Gyrogonites, Mudstone Horizon, Northwest Himalaya, Palaeoecology, Palaeoenvironment