Abstract: Permian palynostratigraphic schemes are used primarily to correlate coal- and hydrocarbon-bearing rocks within basins and between basins, sometimes at high levels of biostratigraphic resolution. Up to now, their main shortcoming has been the lack of correlation with schemes outside the basins, coalfields and hydrocarbon fields that they serve, and chiefly a lack of correlation with the international Permian scale. This is partly because of phytogeographical provinciality from the Guadalupian onwards, making correlation between regional palynostratigraphic schemes difficult. However, local high-resolution palynostratigraphic schemes for regions are now being linked either by assemblage-level quantitative taxonomic comparison or by the use of single well-characterized palynological taxa that occur across Permian phytogeographical provinces. Such taxa include: Scutasporites spp., Vittatina spp., Weylandites spp., Lueckisporites virkkiae , Otynisporites eotriassicus and Converrucosisporites confluens . These palynological correlations are being facilitated and supplemented with radiometric, magnetostratigraphic, independent faunal and strontium isotopic dating.

Abstract New fieldwork was carried out in the central and eastern Alborz, addressing the sedimentary succession from the Pennsylvanian to the Early Triassic. A regional synthesis is proposed, based on sedimentary analysis and a wide collection of new palaeontological data. The Moscovian Qezelqaleh Formation, deposited in a mixed coastal marine and alluvial setting, is present in a restricted area of the eastern Alborz, transgressing on the Lower Carboniferous Mobarak and Dozdehband formations. The late Gzhelian–early Sakmarian Dorud Group is instead distributed over most of the studied area, being absent only in a narrow belt to the SE. The Dorud Group is typically tripartite, with a terrigenous unit in the lower part (Toyeh Formation), a carbonate intermediate part (Emarat and Ghosnavi formations, the former particularly rich in fusulinids), and a terrigenous upper unit (Shah Zeid Formation), which however seems to be confined to the central Alborz. A major gap in sedimentation occurred before the deposition of the overlying Ruteh Limestone, a thick package of packstone–wackestone interpreted as a carbonate ramp of Middle Permian age (Wordian–Capitanian). The Ruteh Limestone is absent in the eastern part of the range, and everywhere ends with an emersion surface, that may be karstified or covered by a lateritic soil. The Late Permian transgression was directed southwards in the central Alborz, where marine facies (Nesen Formation) are more common. Time-equivalent alluvial fans with marsh intercalations and lateritic soils (Qeshlaq Formation) are present in the east. Towards the end of the Permian most of the Alborz emerged, the marine facies being restricted to a small area on the Caspian side of the central Alborz. There, the Permo-Triassic boundary interval is somewhat similar to the Abadeh–Shahreza belt in central Iran, and contains oolites, flat microbialites and domal stromatolites, forming the base of the Elikah Formation. The P – T boundary is established on the basis of conodonts, small foraminifera and stable isotope data. The development of the lower and middle part of the Elikah Formation, still Early Triassic in age, contains vermicular bioturbated mudstone/wackestone, and anachronostic-facies-like gastropod oolites and flat pebble conglomerates. Three major factors control the sedimentary evolution. The succession is in phase with global sea-level curve in the Moscovian and from the Middle Permian upwards. It is out of phase around the Carboniferous–Permian boundary, when the Dorud Group was deposited during a global lowstand of sealevel. When the global deglaciation started in the Sakmarian, sedimentation stopped in the Alborz and the area emerged. Therefore, there is a consistent geodynamic control. From the Middle Permian upwards, passive margin conditions control the sedimentary evolution of the basin, which had its depocentre(s) to the north. Climate also had a significant role, as the Alborz drifted quickly northwards with other central Iran blocks towards the Turan active margin. It passed from a southern latitude through the aridity belt in the Middle Permian, across the equatorial humid belt in the Late Permian and reached the northern arid tropical belt in the Triassic.

The Late Carboniferous to Early Permian dominantly nonmarine, glacigene sequences of Gondwana contain a number of basic palynostratigraphic trends, including the appearance and diversification of (1) monosaccate pollen; (2) cheilocardioid spores (such as Microbaculispora ); (3) Cycadopites pollen; and (4) taeniate and non-taeniate bisaccate pollen, and these and other changes mean that palynology can be used to correlate the sequences from basin to basin and interregionally. Early Permian Western Australian, Arabian, and South African sequences can be correlated using taxa such as Converrucosisporites confluens and Pseudoreticulatispora pseudoreticulata . Thus, for example, palynostratigraphy shows that the Dwyka Group of the northern Karoo Basin, South Africa, correlates with part of the Stockton Formation and the Collie Coal Measures of the Collie Basin, Western Australia. In Western Australia, an associated marine fauna allows the ranges of these and other palynomorphs to be dated approximately with the standard scale; thus, for example, Converrucosisporites confluens probably ranges within the Sakmarian. Radiometric dating of associated volcanic layers also allows palynozones to be calibrated; for example, part of the Vittatina costabilis palynozone of the Paraná Basin may be Asselian in age. It is generally difficult, however, to correlate Gondwana palynological assemblages precisely to the Russian type areas because of scarcity of marine fauna in Gondwana and dissimilarity with assemblages of these type areas, which are paleoequatorial. Thus, the Carboniferous-Permian boundary cannot be precisely correlated in Gondwana by palynology.

ABSTRACT Following palynostratigraphic work on glacigene and post-glacial Lower Permian rocks of the Al Khlata, Gharif and Unayzah formations of the Arabian Peninsula, twenty-four of the most important spore taxa are described and illustrated. The ranges of the taxa are given in terms of the standard palynozonation of Oman and Saudi Arabia. Two spore taxa, Angulisporites cf. splendidus and Anapiculatisporites concinnus , of the OSPZ1 Biozone, are indicative of the lowest parts of the glacigene Al Khlata and Unayzah formations. Many of the simple spore taxa of the genera Microbaculispora , Horriditriletes and Brevitriletes are indicative of Biozone OSPZ2 and higher parts of the Al Khlata Formation, as well as the Unayzah B Member. A few distinctive taxa, for example Lundbladispora gracilis , Indotriradites apiculatus and Cyclogranisporites pox , are characteristic of the OSPZ3 Biozone, and indicate levels within the Lower Gharif Member which overlies the Al Khlata Formation in Oman. The morphology of the common, and stratigraphically important taxon, Vallatisporites arcuatus (Marques-Toigo) Archangelsky and Gamerro, 1979 is illustrated and discussed in detail.

ABSTRACT Palynological assemblages from the Al Khlata Formation (Oman) and the Unayzah Formation (Saudi Arabia) are correlated for the first time. Assemblages are also compared with those of Carboniferous-Permian glaciogene rocks in South America and Australia and with other assemblages in the Middle East. The assemblages of the upper part of the Amal-9 well and those of the studied intervals of the Amal-6 and Jufarah-1 (JFRH-1) wells are correlated with the upper part of Australian Stage 2 and the Lower Cristatisporites Subzone of the Chacoparana Basin, Argentina. Assemblages from the lower part of Amal-9 can be correlated with the lower part of Stage 2 (without Granulatisporites confluens ) and possibly with the Potonieisporites-Lundbladispora Zone of the Chacoparana Basin.

ABSTRACT Palynological assemblages from the basal Khuff clastics in wells in central Saudi Arabia suggest that those deposits are broadly synchronous throughout that area, and are of Late Permian (Tatarian or younger) age. The assemblages are similar to those from Upper Permian rocks in Iraq and the Salt Range of Pakistan. Though qualitatively similar, assemblages are quantitatively unlike those of approximately coeval sequences in Australia, India and Antarctica, suggesting significant phytogeographic differences between these regions in Permian time. Assemblages in the Hilwah-3 (HLWH-3) well from the upper part of the underlying Unayzah Formation constrain the duration of the hiatus represented by the pre-Khuff unconformity in central Saudi Arabia. Improved palynological correlation between Upper Permian sequences in the Middle East requires taxonomic study of the large number of undescribed taxa in the assemblages, to this end four new species are proposed.