An Early Cretaceous age for the Rajmahal traps, Panagarh area, West Bengal: palynological evidence

The discovery of traps in the subsurface Mesozoic succession of the Panagarh area, West Bengal, has drawn attention to their correlation with the traps in the Rajmahal Basin, Bihar. The objective of this paper is to assess the palynological dating of the intertrappean beds with the help of sequential first appearances of the stratigraphically important spore species Cicatricosisporites australiensis, Aquitriradites spinulosus, and Foraminisporis wonthaggiensis. C. australiensis, along with the first appearance of A. spinulosus, denotes the earliest Berriasian. This association is significant for recognition of the Jurassic/Cretaceous boundary. The lowest occurrence of F. wonthaggiensis indicates deposits of Berriasian–Valanginian age. The data on which these observations are based have been obtained from the intertrappean beds of the Rajmahal Formation in six boreholes: PGD-1A, 2, 4, 6, 8 and 9A. Further palynological studies on boreholes PGD-4, 8 and 9A have indicated the approximate time-span for the duration of volcanic activity in the Panagarh area. This seems to have been initiated in the early Berriasian and continued into the Hauterivian, which is earlier than the volcanism associated with the Rajmahal traps in the Rajmahal Basin.