Late Triassic (Carnian) corals from Timor-Leste (East Timor): their identity, setting, and biogeography

Four scleractinian coral taxa are described from limestones within a sandstone-shale sequence correlated with the Late Triassic Babulu Formation, Manatuto township, on the northern coast of Timor-Leste (East Timor). The coral fauna consists of three phaceloid taxa, Paravolzeia timorica gen. et sp. nov., Craspedophyllia ramosa sp. nov., Margarosmilia confluens (Munster), and a generically indeterminate solitary taxon attributed to the family Margarophylliidae. All four corals are related at various taxonomic levels to Carman faunas from the Dolomites of northern Italy. Previously, only Norian coral faunas were known from the Triassic of Timor. The fauna exhibits both similarities to and differences from Carnian faunas of the Dolomites and helps confirm palaeogeographic affinities with the western Tethys, although during Late Triassic time Timor lay in the distant southeastern portal of the Tethys. Despite isolation from the western Tethys, the presence of two species found also in the Dolomites indicates that larval dispersal occurred between the two areas.