CARBONIFEROUS MIOSPORE AND POLLEN ASSEMBLAGES FROM THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI-ARABIA

Lower Carboniferous and earliest Upper Carboniferous miospore and poll en assemblages have been recovered from three well sections in the Kin gdom of Saudi Arabia. A Tournaisian assemblage dominated by Hymenozono triletes explanatus (Luber) Kedo and Auroraspora macra Sullivan is des cribed from offshore well ABSF-29, approximately 100 km northeast of D hahran. Better preserved and more diverse Visean-Namurian assemblages are described from onshore wells ST-8 and AR'AR-1 in the extreme north west of the country. Although there are significant differences in the quantitative composition of the assemblages compared with North Afric a, the presence of taxa such as Aratrisporites saharaensis Loboziak, C layton and Owens, Spelaeotriletes owensii Loboziak and Alpern, and Val latisporites agadesi Loboziak and Alpern suggests that they belong to the same floral province. The miospore assemblages from Saudi Arabia a re tentatively dated by reference to the established Libyan and Algeri an palynological zonal schemes.