Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 252 (2007) 66 – 71

www.elsevier.com/locate/palaeo

Discovery of Permian sporopollen from Daftar, Taxkorgan,

Xinjiang and their geological implications
Jianxin Yao a,⁎, Xuchang Xiao a , Lianda Gao a , Naiwen Wang a , Wenhua Ji b ,
Shiyan Wang c , Yong Wang a , Zhenqing Chi a
a
Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, 26 Baiwanzhuang Road, Beijing, 100037, China
b
Academy of Regional Geology and Minerals Research, Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources of Shaanxi Province, Xianyang, 712000, China
c
Regional Geological Survey Party, Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources of Henan Province, Pingdingshan, 467021, China
Accepted 30 November 2006

Abstract

Tectonically located in the West Kunlun–Karakorum orogenic belt at the junction between the Indian plate and the Eurasian
plate, the Daftar area, Taxkorgan County, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, is one of the most important regions for the
research on geological evolution of the Karakorum–Kunlun Mountains. Located in the very cold anoxic area in the core of central
Asia, natural conditions on the West Kunlun–Karakorum area are very challenging and roads are bad making field work difficult.
Because the regional geology has been little studied, Permian microfossils have not been reported before. After field collection and
research, the Permian sporopollen Endosporites punctatus Gao, Wilsonites delicatus (Kosanke) Kosanke, Cordaitina spongiosa
(Luber) Samoilovich, Alisporites splendens (Leschik) Foster and Sulcatisporites ovatus (Balme and Hennelly) Balme were found
recently in a clastic sequence in the Daftar area. Based on the evidence from Permian sporopollen, and data previously published
on biostratigraphy and isotopic geochronology, the authors consider that the clastic sedimentary strata in Daftar area, previously
regarded as Permian, may be a mélange composed of Silurian and Permian as well as other horizons of different ages.
© 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Permian; Sporopollen; Mélange; Karakorum–Kunlun Mountains

1. Introduction altitude is 4000–5000 m, anoxic extent is 30% ∼ 50%)

Tectonically located in the West Kunlun–Karakorum
orogenic belt at the junction between the Indian plate
and the Eurasian plate, the Daftar area, Taxkorgan
County, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, is one of
the most important regions for the research on
geological evolution of the Karakorum–Kunlun Moun-
tains. Located in the very cold anoxic area (average
⁎ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 10 68999706; fax: +86 10 68997803.
E-mail address: yaojianxin@cags.net.cn (J. Yao).
0031-0182/$ - see front matter © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.palaeo.2006.11.056
in the core of central Asia, natural conditions in the West
Kunlun–Karakorum area are very challenging and roads
are bad making field work difficult. Therefore, the
regional geology of the area has been little studied.
In the 1940s, the stratigraphy of marine carbonate
rock and clastic rock exposed between Ageledaban and
Karakorum mountain Pass was first assigned to the
Upper Permian Balange Series (Belyaewski, 1947).
Henceforth, this series was regarded as Permian,
Carboniferous–Permian or Lower Permian (Second
Geological team of Bureau of Geology and Mineral
 J. Yao et al. / Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 252 (2007) 66–71
Resources of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region,
1985). The Editorial group of regional stratigraphic
chart of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (1981)
considered this series to be the Lower Permian
Kongkashankou Formation composed of gray–black
shale, sandstone and siltstone intercalated with few
limestone beds, yielding brachiopods, corals and
fusulinids: Neoschwagerina sp., Sumatrina sp., and
distributed in Taxkorgan, upper reaches of Yeerqiang
River and Karakorum mountain Pass. The Institute of
Geology and Mineral Resources and First Regional
Geological Surveying Party, Bureau of Geology and
Mineral Resources of Xinjiang (1991) divided the
Kongkashankou Formation into two parts, the lower
part was named the Jiawendaban Formation, the upper
part was still called the Kongkashankou Formation (Jin
et al., 2000).
According to the Permian fusulinids found in breccia
limestone, bioclastic micrite, a large area of Permian
rocks was indicated in the upper reaches of the
Taxkorgan River. This discovery was shown on the
Synopsis of the geological map and mineral map of the
western part of South Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous
Region (1:500,000) compiled by the Second Geological
team of Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources of
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (1985). Based on
published data, Jiang et al. (1992, 2000) and Ding et al.
(1996) divided the West Kunlun–Karakorum orogenic
belt into three belts, a north belt, a middle belt and a
south belt. Jiang et al. (1992, 2000) distinguished a
marine facies in the middle and south belts, and a non-
marine facies in the north belt of Lower Permian. Ding
et al. (1996) thought that the distribution of the Upper
Paleozoic and Lower Mesozoic in the northern part of
south belt is restricted along the southern side of the
Mazha–Kangxiwa ductile shear zone and that the Upper
Paleozoic and Lower Mesozoic in the southern part of
the south belt is widely distributed over upper reaches of
the Taxkorgan River and Karakorum River, but the
stratigraphic sequences in outcrops are usually incom-
plete, and the rock types are quite complex.
Wen et al. (2000) divided the West Kunlun–
Karakorum stratigraphy into five stratigraphy provinces:
Tarim, Kunlun, Bayankara, Karakorum and Qiangtang,
and pointed out that Lower and Middle Permian are
widely distributed in the Tarim, Kunlun, Karakorum and
Qiangtang provinces. The Lower Permian is about
1000 m thickness and is composed of dark grey slate
intercalated with quartz schist, lens-shaped sandstone
and green schist (metamorphosed basic volcanic rock),
the characteristic of flysch bedding is present in some
sandy slate beds in the Daftar area of Taxkorgan County,
67
Zankan and East Mountain of Daohangzhan, and some
pebbled slate is intercalated with the sandy slate beds,
although no fossils were found in western Daftar area.
On all accounts, the confirmation of age of Permian
stratigraphy of clastic rock was based on brachiopods,
corals and fusulinids found in the few limestone beds
intercalated with the sandy slate beds. No evidence of
sporopollen was found in the gray and dark green clastic
rock, which is widely distributed over upper reaches of
Taxkorgan River. Early Silurian graptolite fossils: Cf.
Climacograptus anjiensis (Yang), Climacograptus cf.
minutus Carruthers, cf. Diplograptus deformis Huang
and Lu were found in the gray and dark green
carbonaceous siltstone, shale at 5 km to the south of
Daftar village. Therefore, the age of those strata around
Daftar area is in doubt (Wang et al., 2003).
2. Material studied
Samples were collected from the gray–black shale
intercalated with carbonaceous shale of the Daftar
section by Yao Jianxin, Xiao Xuchang, Ji Wenhua and
Wang Shiyan (Fig. 1), and were treated chemically by
Liu Dengzhou and Zhang Baoping in the laboratory of
Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Geological
Sciences. The sporopollen fossils were studied by Gao
Lianda in detail.
3. Permian pollen and spore fossils
As a result, the Permian sporopollen: E. punctatus
Gao, Wilsonites delicatus (Kosanke) Kosanke, Cordai-
tina spongiosa (Luber) Samoilovich, Alisporites splen-
dens (Leschik) Foster, Sulcatisporites ovatus (Balme
and Hennelly) Balme, Leiotriletes sp. and Punctatis-
porites sp. were found from the gray–black shale
intercalated with carbonaceous shale at 1 km to the
south of the Daftar village recently. Because of sulphide
pseudomorphs, the preservation of the sporopollen is
poor, thus the quality of photographs illustrating is
limited (Fig. 2).
4. Discussion about stratigraphic age
Above-mentioned Permian sporopollen are widely
distributed, except the northern parts of Xinjiang Uygur
Autonomous Region and Gansu Province. Among these
sporopollen, C. spongiosa was found in the Lower
Permian Kungurian of the Russian platform and Urals
area as well as the Shangshihezi Formation in Ningwu,
northern part of Shanxi Province, China (Gao, 1984;
Ouyang and Hou, 1999). W. delicatus, E. punctatus,
68 J. Yao et al. / Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 252 (2007) 66–71

Fig. 1. Geographic sketch map of the Dafter, Taxkorgan, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

A. splendens and S. ovatus are Permian sporopollen, and
occur throughout most of China (except the northern
parts of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and Gansu
Province), West Europe and North America. Leiotriletes
sp. and Punctatisporites sp. were found in the Xiashi-
hezi Formation in North China (Ouyang and Hou, 1999)
and the Maerzheng Formation, in which the Neosch-
wagerina–Eoplydiexodina Assemblage Zone was found
(Jin et al., 2000), in the western end of East Kunlun
(Song et al., 2004). The age of the gray–black shale

Fig. 2. The sporopollen fossils from Daftar area, Taxkorgan, Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. (1) Sulcatisporites ovatus (Balme and Hennelly)
(Bharadwaj, 1962), X1000, DBD-0-6; (2) (3) Alisporites splendens (Leschik) (Foster, 1979), (2) X700, DBD-0-4, (3) X600, DBD-0-5; (4) Wilsonites
delicatus (Kosanke, 1950), X500, DBD-0-1; (5) Cordaitina spongiosa (Luber) (Samoilovich, 1953), X700, DBD-0-3; (6) Endosporites punctatus
(Gao, 1984), X700, DBD-0-2.
 J. Yao et al. / Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 252 (2007) 66–71
Table 1
Correlation of Permian strata in West Kunlun Mountains and adjacent areas a

After Jin et al., 2000; Wen et al., 2000; Song et al., 2004; Gu et al., 2005a,b.

69
70 J. Yao et al. / Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 252 (2007) 66–71
intercalated with carbonaceous shale yielding above-
mentioned Permian sporopollen may belong to Late
Cisuralian–Early Lopingian (Table 1).
The 276.3 ± 18 Ma the datum (correlation coefficient
0.993) measured for basic volcanic rock at the
Hanishanidi of the Daftar area by Ra–Sr isochron
dating (Ding et al., 1996) is comparable with the age of
turbidity deposits defined by the sporopollen in the
Daftar area. The above-mentioned data indicate that the
clastic rocks in the upper reaches of Taxkorgan River,
especially around Daftar village, may include strata of
different ages such as Silurian and Permian etc. Similar
cases were also found in the Wenquangou and
Jiawendaban areas of West Kunlun (Yao et al., 2004).
The Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources of
Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (1993) once
defined tectonic contacts between Silurian and Permian
sections. The authors consider that this opinion con-
forms to reality for the stratigraphic succession in the
upper reaches of the Taxkorganhe River.
Based on analysis of the stratigraphy of the orogenic
belt, Wang (1996) put forward the basic concept of
“non-routine stratigraphy”, examples of which are an-
cient metamorphic, allochthons, mélanges, ophiolites,
olistoliths, seamount rocks and tectonite etc. Mélanges
are composed of rocks of the accretional wedge in the
inner side of the ocean trench with both oceanic and
continental crust rocks intermixed by structural forces,
the typical representation of which is the Franciscan
complex. Its rock components include turbidite, deep-
sea sediments, some basic–ultrabasic and land-source
blocks. The mixture of Silurian and Permian in the
Daftar area is similar to a kind of mélange. It is possible
that the Silurian blocks (including strata of other ages)
were introduced into the Permian units by structural
forces after the Permian, and the mixtite had been
formed in the Daftar area. Liu (2001) considered that
main tectonic event was the closure of the Paleotethys
ocean basin in West Kunlun region during Late Permian
and Early Triassic. The Indian plate of south side
collided with the Eurasian plate of north side to follow
the closure of the Paleotethys ocean basin with the
junction belt between the Indian plate and the Eurasian
plate long the Kangxiwa fault. Mixtite was formed
at that time. Because the data are still limited, it
is necessary to test the result by further research
on absolute age and the mechanism of the mixtite.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the support from the
National Nature Science Foundation of China (Grant
40572018) and the Geological Survey of China (Grant
200313000054, 200313000059). The authors thank Mr.
Yao She and Mr. Songwei for help during field work in
the West Kunlun region, Mr. Liu Dengzhou and Mss.
Zhang Baoping for processing the palynology samples.
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