(Pennsylvanian) in the Chacoparaná Basin, Northern Argentina
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Acta Palaeobotanica 58(1): 3–26, 2018 e-ISSN 2082-0259 DOI: 10.2478/acpa-2018-0002 ISSN 0001-6594 The palynology of the Ordóñez Formation (Pennsylvanian) in the Chacoparaná Basin, northern Argentina PEDRO R. GUTIÉRREZ1* and M. LUCÍA BALARINO1 1 CONICET (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas), Sección Paleopalinología, Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales “B. Rivadavia”, Av. Ángel Gallardo 470, C1405DJR, Buenos Aires, Argentina; e-mail: [email protected] Received 27 September 2017; accepted for publication 15 March 2018 ABSTRACT. A detailed palynological analysis of the Chacoparaná Basin is presented. Thirty-one samples were recovered from boreholes YCF.CO1, YCF.CO2 and YCF.CO3, corresponding to the lower part of the Ordóñez For- mation, at the Santiago Temple locality (Córdoba Province, Argentina). Three new species are described: Calamo- spora fissurata sp. nov., Retusotriletes archangelskyi sp. nov. and Horriditriletes chacoparanensis sp. nov.; Leiotri- letes malanzanensis nov. nom., Endosporites menendezi nov. nom., emend. are proposed to replace L. tenuis Azcuy and E. parvus Menéndez; and the following species are proposed as new combinations: Brevitriletes coalescens (Menéndez & Azcuy) nov. comb., Brevitriletes papillatus (Menéndez & Azcuy) nov. comb., B. sparsus (Menéndez & Azcuy) nov. comb., B. delicatus (Menéndez) nov. comb. and Indotriradites malanzanensis (Azcuy) nov. comb. Two different associations were identified and are compared with the known biozones from the same basin and other biostratigraphical schemes for basins from central western Argentina. The palynological assemblage can be referred, in part, to the Potonieisporites–Lundbladispora Biozone (Chacoparaná Basin) and the Raistrickia densa–Convolutispora muriornata Biozone (central western basins of Argentina, latest Serpukhovian–Bashkirian). KEYWORDS: palynology, systematics, Chacoparaná Basin, Pennsylvanian, Argentina INTRODUCTION The Chacoparaná Basin (Argentina) is an Geological and palaeontological information intracratonic basin and a continuation of the obtained from different boreholes drilled dur- Paraná Basin sedimentation that infilled pri- ing the 1940s by YPF (Yacimientos Petrolíferos marily during the Late Palaeozoic (Fig. 1A). The Fiscales) and YCF (Yacimientos Carboníferos sedimentary succession commences in the Ordo- Fiscales) (Padula & Mingramm 1963, 1969, vician and is present in parts of the sub-surface Russo et al. 1980, Reinante et al. 2014) indi- of Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil (see Milani cate that the Upper Palaeozoic sediments of et al. 1998). The basin was developed in three the Chacoparaná Basin consist mainly of main cycles: the first in the Cambrian–Ordovi- diamictites, sandstones and shales, containing cian, the second in the Silurian–Devonian, both rich palynological assemblages (Archangelsky marine, and finally the third in the Carbonifer- et al. 1980, Russo et al. 1987, Césari et al. ous–Permian, the latter mainly of continental 1995, Archangelsky & Vergel 1996, Vergel origin (Reinante et al. 2014). The sediments con- 1998, Winn & Steinmetz 1998, Playford & Dino stituting the sequence are known from different 2002, Antonelli & Ottone 2006). boreholes in the Santiago del Estero, Chaco, The Chacoparaná Basin is divided into Córdoba and Santa Fe provinces (Fig. 1B). the Alhuampa sub-basin in the north and the San Cristobal–Las Breñas Oriental sub- * Corresponding author basin in the south (Fig. 1B). In the Alhuampa 4 P.R. Gutiérrez & M.L. Balarino / Acta Palaeobotanica 58(1): 3–26, 2018 Fig. 1. A. Geographic location of South American Permian basins. B. Geographic location of the studied boreholes (Santiago Temple) and other boreholes cited in the text sub-basin, palynomorphs recovered from the microforaminiferal species. We describe and Upper Palaeozoic strata of the Árbol Blanco, illustrate only material that enables us to pro- Coronel Rico, Gancedo, Campo Gallo and El pose nomenclatural innovations (new species, Caburé boreholes were published by Vergel new combinations, substitute names). Supple- (1987a, 1990a, b, 1993, 1998), Gutiérrez et al. mentary File 11 presents a commented list of (1997) and Antonelli & Ottone (2006). all the palynological material included in this Palynomorphs from the San Cristobal–Las study, and illustrates only material not previ- Breñas Oriental sub-basin have been obtained ously recorded in the Chacoparaná Basin. from the Santiago Temple (YCF.CO1, YCF. The results make it clear that the assem- CO2 and YCF.CO3), Ordóñez, Camilo Aldao, blage presents a significantly more diverse Saira, Josefina and Las Mochas boreholes, and microflora than originally thought, including these were referred to the Ordóñez and Vic- the first record of foraminiferal linings in the toriano Rodríguez formations (Archangelsky Upper Palaeozoic of Argentina (Gutiérrez et al. & Gamerro 1979, Archangelsky et al. 1980, 2016). Furthermore, the composition and dis- Russo et al. 1980, Vergel 1986, 1987b, Césari tribution of this microflora allowed us to dis- et al. 1995, Winn & Steinmetz 1998, Playford tinguish two associations (I, II). & Dino 2002). The boreholes from the Santiago Temple GEOLOGICAL SETTING locality (31°23′40″S; 63°24′42″W, Córdoba Province) (Figs 1, 2) comprise Upper Palaeozoic strata. To date, the only palynological informa- The YCF.CO1, YCF.CO2 and YCF.CO3 tion from this area comes from a study by Arch- boreholes were drilled in the Santiago Temple angelsky et al. (1980), who analysed one sample locality (Fig. 1B) at height of 150 metres OD from each of the boreholes and identified a total (Ordnance Datum). Winn & Steinmetz (1998) of 26 species, tentatively correlating this assem- stated that the strata 633.00 mbgl (metres below blage with the Potonieisporites–Lundbladispora ground level) correspond to Tertiary–Cretaceous (PL) Biozone recognized in the Chacoparaná successions, overlying Upper Palaeozoic sedi- Basin by Russo et al. (1980) (Fig. 3). In this ments referred to the Ordóñez Formation and study we analysed 31 palynological samples 1 Supplementary File 1 available on page http://www. botany. from the Santiago Temple boreholes, and iden- pl/images/ibwyd/acta_paleo/Acta_Palaeobot_58_1_Gutierrez- tified 219 forms consisting of palynomorphs and Balarino_Suppl_1.pdf P.R. Gutiérrez & M.L. Balarino / Acta Palaeobotanica 58(1): 3–26, 2018 5 Fig. 2. Stratigraphic section in boreholes YCF.CO.1, YCF.CO2 and YCF.CO3, with studied samples (referring to BAPal acronym) ranging from 633.00 to 990.00 mbgl. The upper lithological changes were not detected between section (633.00–955.00 mbgl interval) consists them at the same depths, so the same strati- mainly of diamictites, sandstones, mudstones graphic column is used in Figure 2. and thick coal beds, deposited in fluvial envi- ronments. The lower part (955.00–990.00 mbgl interval) is composed of extremely cemented, MATERIAL AND METHODS fine to coarse red and white micaceous sand- stones. Lastly, from 990.00 to 1064.30 mbgl is We processed the samples following the standard palynological treatment (physical disaggregation and crystalline basement assigned a Precambrian chemical dissolution with HF and HCl; unoxidized age (Winn & Steinmetz 1998). residue then concentrated by filtration using 25 µm In this study we analysed core samples mesh and subsequently prepared as slides) for Palaeo- from the 839.50–869.00 mbgl (CO1), 800.00– zoic sediments (Wood et al. 1996) at the Palaeopalyno- 886.50 mbgl (CO2) and 738.00–896.75 mbgl logical Laboratory, Museo Argentino de Ciencias Natu- rales “B. Rivadavia” (MACN), Buenos Aires. Thirty-one (CO3) intervals (Fig. 2), which encompass the samples were analysed for this study: 4 from the CO1 lower section of the Ordóñez Formation. The borehole, 13 from the CO2 borehole and 14 from the boreholes are very near to each other, and CO3 borehole (Tab. 1). Photographs were taken with 6 P.R. Gutiérrez & M.L. Balarino / Acta Palaeobotanica 58(1): 3–26, 2018 Fig. 3. Correlation of the Carboniferous-Permian palynostratigraphic units of the Chacoparaná Basin and western Argentina, according to the available radiometric data: 1. Punta del Agua Formation, 335.99±0.06 Ma (Gulbranson et al. 2010); 2. Jejenes Formations, 321.3±5.3 Ma (Valdez Buso et al. 2017); 3. Lower section of the Río del Peñon Formation and Guandacol Forma- tion, 319.57±0.09 and 318.79 0.10 Ma (Gulbranson et al. 2010); 4. Tupe Formation, 315.46±0.07 Ma (Gulbranson et al. 2010); 5. Tupe Formation, 312.82±0.11 Ma; 6. Patquía Formation, 310.71±0.11, 309.89±0.08 Ma; middle Rio del Peñón Formation, 310.63±0.07 Ma (Gulbranson et al. 2010); 7. Agua del Jagüel Formation, 307.2±5.2 Ma (Lech 2002). 8. La Colina Formation, 295±6 Ma (Thompson & Mitchell 1972); Abbreviations: Las Bre (San Cristobal-Las Breñas Oriental sub-basin), Alhua (Alhuampa sub-basin). Selected references. Western basins (Césari & Gutiérrez 2001, Césari 2007, Pérez Loinzae 2007, Césari et al. 2011) a Nikon DS-Fil digital camera (5 mpx resolution) fitted with a Phillips XL 30 TMP scanning electron micro- to a Nikon Eclipse 50i optical light microscope at the scope (SEM) at MACN. Palaeopalynological Laboratory, MACN. All illustrated Size measurements are presented as minimum palynomorphs are located with England Finder coordi- (mean) maximum values. ED/id ratio refers to the nates. The permanent repository of the samples is the Exoexine Diameter (ED)/intexine diameter (id) ratio. Palaeopalynological Slide Collection of the aforemen- The relative abundance of palynomorph species