Climate-controlled palynofacies and miospore biostratigraphy of the Early Devonian Jauf Formation, northern Saudi Arabia

The Jauf Formation miospore succession is synthesized in terms of paleoenvironments and sequence stratigraphy. The data set for this study is obtained from four overlapping, continuously cored, and extensively sampled, boreholes that for a 940 ft composite section. The Jauf Formation ranges in age from late Pragian to latest Emsian. The palynological assemblages, recognized herein, provide the basis for recognizing depositional environments present in the Early Devonian of northern Saudi Arabia. Transgressive – regressive cycles are indicated, not only by lithology but by marked changes in the marine to terrestrially dominated palynological assemblages. Flooding events are recognized by the replacement of spore dominated assemblages by organic-walled microphytoplankton. The maximum flooding interval for the Jauf is reinterpreted based on a correlative event consisting of diverse acritarchs and abundant chitinozoans. [Add details on the paly and sequence stratigraphy here. No.cycles and order.] The new northern Gondwanan biozonation developed by Breuer and Steemans (2012) and used here allows a high-resolution regional biozonation for the Arabian Plate and more intercontinental [?] correlation of the Jauf Formation with other Gondwanan and Euramerican localities. One new spore genus (Zonohilates) and four spore species (Insculptospora maxima, Camarozonotriletes alruwailii, Devonomonoletes crassus and Zonohilates vulneratus) are newly proposed