Tethyan uppermost Permian (Dzhulfian and Dorashamian) foraminiferal faunas and their paleogeographic and tectonic implications

Abstract

The foraminiferal faunas and biostratigraphic correlation of the Tethyan uppermost Permian (Dzhulfian and Dorashamian) provide important paleogeographic and tectonic data for the interpretation of the Palaeofusulina-bearing terranes in East and Southeast Asia. These interpretations have a significant bearing on understanding Japanese pre-Cretaceous tectonostratigraphic and micropaleontologic data, as well as the geodynamic evolution of the Japanese Palaeofusulina-bearing terranes. The Tethyan foraminiferal fauna in the uppermost Permian is characterized by the occurrence of provincial and endemic schubertellid genera, and the absence of neoschwagerinids and verbeekinids which had characterized the rapidly evolving Middle Permian Tethyan marine faunas until their extinction at the end of the Midian. Difficulties in world-wide correlation of the uppermost Permian have resulted because of different geographic faunal compositions and the geographic patterns of extinction of Permian marine faunas. The Palaeofusulina fauna is one of the most reliable indicators of the uppermost Permian. Its presence or absence serves as paleogeographic constraints on East and Southeast Asian terranes. For example, the absence of Palaeofusulina fauna and the presence of late Midian Lepidolina multiseptata faunas in the Lhasa Terrane in Tibet and the Wolya Terrane in Sumatra (the third continental sliver north of Gondwana) are important, particularly, for identifying the rift–drift–collision process of the Gondwana-affinity terranes. They suggest a Late Permian separation of the two terranes from Gondwana. Tethyan Palaeofusulina occur in the latest Permian tropical to subtropical latitudinal belt and along with other geologic data assist in paleogeographic reconstructions and in interpreting the possible movement and emplacement of the Palaeofusulina-bearing terranes such as the Maizuru, South Kitakami–Kurosegawa and Chichibu terranes in Japan. They reveal that: (1) the Upper Permian Maizuru Group was deposited on the eastern continental margin of South China; (2) the occurrence of the Lower Permian Cathaysian flora and a number of geologic data in the South Kitakami–Kurosegawa suggest an arc–trench system setting and the Late Permian deposition in a shallow open-marine environment in proximity to South China; (3) foraminiferal biogeograpic data and the reconstructed oceanic plate stratigraphy in the Chichibu Terrane constrain the location of the Chichibu Seamount Chains to the western part of the Panthalassan domain, as they moved westwards against the Cathaysian Continent until their Jurassic accretion.