First evidence of middle to late Cambrian deposition by first palynological data from the Torgau-Doberlug Syncline (subsurface Central Germany, Mediterranean shelf of Gondwana)
Abstract
Purpose Cambrian to Ordovician sequences in Germany are known from only a few regions of limited geographic extent. One of the largest of these regions is represented by the Torgau-Doberlug Syncline (TDS) where fossiliferous early to mid-Cambrian strata occur in the subsurface.
Cambrian skeletal fauna and archaeocyathan-calcimicrobial reef mounds from this area indicate a West-Gondwanan Mediterranean palaeogeographic affiliation. However, organic-walled microfossils were not studied so far.
Methods New palynological research on the old and recently sampled, but hitherto non-investigated drilling core Wis BWA 1686-81 provided a moderately diverse acritarch microflora. Results The moderately diverse acritarch assemblage is dominated by diverse leiosphaerids and the stratigraphically important genera Cristallinium, Eliasum, and Timofeevia associated with specimens representing most probably the "galeate" acritarch plexus (particularly Cymatiogalea, Priscogalea, and Stelliferidium) and a few further acritarch genera.
This microflora points to a biostratigraphic position within the Cambrian Series 3 to possibly early-Furongian age including indicating for the first time that there was deposition in this palaeogeographic region continuing to the latest mid-Cambrian. The hitherto assumed sedimentary gap from early mid-Cambrian until Ordovician which seems to be common in whole Saxo-Thuringia is now slightly shorter.
Conclusion The results support the model of a connected Cambro-Ordovician "Mediterranean shelf" with closely related internal areas and with well comparable early Palaeozoic sequences from Spain in the Southwest of Europe until East-Central Europe at least with the TDS as their today northernmost occurrence.