Marine flooding surfaces recorded in Permian black shales and coal deposits of the Main Karoo Basin (South Africa): Implications for basin dynamics and cross-basin correlation: Discussion

The paper "Marine flooding surfaces recorded in Permian black shales and coal deposits of the Main Karoo Basin (South Africa): implications for basin dynamics and cross-basin correlation" by Gotz et al. (2017) correlates the Whitehill Formation with the No. 5 coal seam on a reported prasinophyte/acritarch spike, which the authors claim indicates a basin-wide marine transgression in the Roadian. The study disregards lithostratigraphic, palynological and radio-isotopic age evidence to the contrary, which all support a Kungurian age for the Whitehill Formation, and cast doubt on the marine affinity of the acritarchs used for cross-basin correlation. Further evidence is required before a "major transgressive event" in the Karoo Basin can be supported by palynology.