Effect of steep climate gradient on palynological assemblages on the Arabian part of the Tethys shore in two Carboniferous-Permian ice age time slices

Abstract

Palaeoclimate modelling of two time slices, Serpukhovian to Bashkirian (Carboniferous), and Gzhelian to early Sakmarian (latest Carboniferous to Early Permian), indicates marked changes in palynological assemblages from 30°S and 50°S across the Gondwana and Tethys margin. Both time slices indicate a distinct cold climate assemblage dominated by cheilocardioid spores, while a warmer climate with mean annual temperature above 19 °C appears to encourage the growth of plants that produced Euramerican coal belt spores such as Vestispora fenestrata and Reticulatisporites polygonalis. It is possible that the parent plants of cingulicamerate spores such as Lundbladispora spp., though tolerant of cold conditions, were not tolerant of the coldest conditions (for example below 0 °C).