End-Triassic ammonoid and bivalve faunas of the Germig area, Tibetan Himalaya, lived in a tropical, shallow-water environment during the Triassic-Jurassic boundary interval. High stratigraphic resolution based on ammonite-biochrons allows to tracing the place of origin of several faunal elements. The bivalves Aguilerella and Ctenostreon occurred first in the Tibetan Himalaya and migrated from there to the eastern South Pacific, exhibiting a pantropic dispersal pattern. This dispersal route is supported by the distribution pattern of the ammonites Choristoceras, Discamphiceras, Pleuroacanthites, and Psiloceras calliphyllum. A few taxa, which went extinct everywhere else by the end of the Triassic, survived in the Tibetan Himalaya into early Early Jurassic times. They include the ammonites Choristoceras and Eopsiloceras, and the bivalves Newaagia, Terquemia, Persia, Ryderia guangdongensis, and Cultriopsis angusta. This suggests that the Tibetan Himalaya may have played a refugia role in the course of the end-Triassic mass extinction.
The Angjie Formation and Xiala Formation,present in the Shiquanhe area of Gar County in the western part of Gangdise,Tibet,belong to the Gangdise stratigraphic subregion. Conodonts have been found in the Angjie Formation,and they permit an age determination of Early to Middle Permian for that formation. The age of the Xiala Formation could be late Middle Permian. Whether the Late Permian marine deposits are present in this area still needs to be determined,but it is possible that the lower part of the Xiala Formation overlaps partly the upper part of the Angjie Formation. More importantly,the study has brought about a finding of typical peri-Gondwana cool water facies conodonts,namely,Vjalovognathus sp. nov. x. This is the first report and brief description of a conodont fauna from peri-Gondowana cool water facies in China. It indicates that the Gangdise stratigraphic subregion can be subdivided;the western part belongs to peri-Gondwana cool water facies,and the eastern part belongs to Tethys.
Most geologists believe that there are no Early and Middle Triassic strata in the W. Gandisê stratigraphic subregion, but the present authors have found Early Triassic conodonts for the first time in the Shiquanhe area, including five conodonts genera (Form genera): Pachycladina, Neohindeodella, Cornudina, Hadrodontina and Hibbardella sp. etc. Then we affirm that Early Triassic deposits exist in the Gandisê stratigraphic subregion, and establish the Tangnale Formation. The conclusion is new important complementary basal data for Triassic stratigraphy division of Gangdisê, reconstructing palaogeography and studying Gangdisê from Paleozoic to Mesozoic island-arc evolution and transi-tion.
ZHENG YouYe1, XU RongKe1,2, WANG ChengYuan3, MA GuoTao1, LAI XuLong1, YE DeJin2, CAO Liang1 & LIANG JiWei4 1 Faculty of Earth Resourse, China University of Geoscience, Wuhan 430074, China
