A palynological investigation across the Jurassic Cretaceous boundary on the south-east flanks of Mount Hermon, Israel

The disconformable contact across the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary on the south-east flanks of Mount Hermon, Israel was studied palynologically. The youngest Jurassic sediments (Beer-Sheva and Haluza Formation J6-J7) are of late Oxfordian age. Miospores, probably of (?late) Berriasian age, were discovered within sediments in a volcanic sequence, the E'Shatr sequence, above the contact, and are considered to be the oldest. Cretaceous fossils in northern Israel. Overlying clastic sediments (basal Hatira Formation, 'Nubian Sandstone' equivalent) previously thought to be devoid of fossils yielded miospores and dinoflagellate cysts deposited during a transgressive pulse of probable late Barremian age. The new combination of the spore species Biretisporites aegyptiaca nov. comb. is proposed. The palynomorphs studied are used to correlate the lithostratigraphic units above and below the Jurassic-Cretaceous boundary in northern Israel with other parts of the Middle East (northern Gondwana, Tethyan realm) and western Europe (Laurasia, Boreal realm). The oldest known Cretaceous miospores in Israel were discovered in a terrestrial sequence barren of other fossils. They indicate a continental environment of deposition which supported a forest cover of conifers, tree-ferns and lycopsid epiphytes, and a pteridophytic floor cover that indicates moist climatic conditions. (C) 1996 Academic Press Limited