Latest Devonian and Early Carboniferous palynostratigraphy of northern Brazil and North Africa - A proposed integration of western European and Gondwanan miospore biozonations

Latest Devonian through Visean miospore successions from northern Brazilian and selected North African basins are compared, and their remarkable similarities once again confirmed. They point out to the unity of the so-called Aratrisporites saharaensis Microflora, a distinctive palynofloral province of western Gondwana where several endemic forms of regional biostratigraphic usefulness occur along with some age-diagnostic miospore species of Euramerican affinity. Latest Tournaisian and Early Visean palynofloras apparently remain unproven in extensive portions of that province, which can be attributed partly to sedimentary condensation, partly to erosional truncations. Reinterpretations of published faunal data from Algerian Sahara and western Libyan basins seem to support our miospore-based correlations. However, taxonomic and stratigraphic updates of some marine faunas are still needed in Carboniferous basins of North Africa. Tournaisian - Visean faunal controls are missing in northern Brazilian basins.