Palynology of the recent intertidal sediments of the Southern Red Sea Coast of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Seven semi-consolidated surface sediment samples from the tidal flats along the southern Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia were studied for their palynomorph assemblages. These samples are mainly clay and fine sand and yielded low numbers but high diversity of palynomorphs. They have various affinities and have been divided into five groups: (A) pollen and spores; (B) dinoflagellate cysts and algal remains; (C) fungal spores, hyphae and fruit bodies; (D) protists and invertebrate remains; and (E) miscellaneous and unidentified forms. The protists and invertebrate remains are a diverse group that includes microforaminifera, thecamoebians, tintinnomorphs, crustacean and annelid palynomorphs. These palynomorphs belong to both marine and terrestrial environments and are of autochthonous and allochthonous origins. An attempt has been made to identify each palynomorph and relate it to its parent organism, plant or animal, and to discuss its environment. This is the first such study in and around the Arabian Peninsula.

Keywords:

• Red Sea Recent sediments
• intertidal environments
• non-pollen palynomorphs (NPP)
• palynology
• micropalaeontology
• Saudi Arabia

Acknowledgements

I thank my former colleagues from King Fahad University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Saudi Arabia: Lamidi Babalola, Michael Kaminski and Khalid Ramadan. They helped during the field trip and sample collection. Asif Khan prepared the location map, and Osman Abdullatif and all of us discussed various aspects of this project. I thank KFUPM for financial support of the field trip. I am thankful to Dr Peta Mudie (Geological Survey of Canada) and Dr Francine McCarthy (Brock University) for helping me in identifying certain palynomorphs. I dedicate this paper to my dear friend Sunil Kumar, former director Geological Survey of India, Lucknow, India. I also thank my son, Anshuman Kumar, for linguistic improvements to this research paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Arun Kumar

ARUN KUMAR did M.Sc. (Geology) from Lucknow University, India, Ph.D. (Stratigraphic Palynology) from Michigan State University, USA, and a second Ph.D. (Environmental Micropaleontology) from Carleton University, Canada, and worked as a post-doctoral research fellow at Sheffield University, UK, Nagasaki University, Japan and Carleton University, Canada. He taught various courses in Geology at Kumaun University, India, University of the West Indies, Jamaica, and King Fahad University of Petroleum and Minerals (KFUPM), Saudi Arabia. He also worked with the petroleum industry as a palynologist and biostratigrapher with the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, India, P.T. Corelab Indonesia, KFUPM, and Sirte Oil Company, Libya. During all these assignments he worked on several projects on Permian, Jurassic, Cretaceous and Tertiary biostratigraphy, and basin exploration. In addition to palynology, his other research interests include application of thecamoebians as proxies for Quaternary climate and environmental changes, and study of Holocene dinoflagellate cysts and benthic foraminifera in the fjords of Vancouver Island, Canada. He has studied mangroves surrounding the Arabian Peninsula, and his new research interest is in natural hazards. He has published extensively on these subjects, and along with a colleague, edited a volume on Paleotsunami (Natural Hazards, 2012, 63-1). At present he is a Research Associate in the Department of Earth Science, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada.