New Evidence for Carboniferous Age of the Taungnyo Group Exposed in the Loikaw Area, Kayah State

Abstract

New Carboniferous faunas from the Taungnyo Group, Loikaw area are reported. These include two new Late Tournaisian/early Visean (Lower Carboniferous/Mississippian) trilobite species, 'Liobole loikawensis', 'Crassibole karenniensis' and conodont faunas representative of the late Tournaisian 'Scaliognathous anchoralis' and 'Gnathodus typicus-Protognathodus' cordiformis conodonts zone. The age of the Taungnyo Group, Loikaw area is confirmed as Lower Carboniferous (Mississippian) for the sampled part of this stratigraphic unit. The presence of Carboniferous in the Shan Plateau Region of Myanmar is confirmed. The trilobites are most closely related to species from deep water facies of late Tournaisian and Visean age from central and Western Europe. Biogeographic links between upper Tournaisian and early Visean conodonts on the Sibumasu Terrane and Laurentia and Eastern Australian Gondwana support a NW Australian Gondwana margin position for Sibumasu in the Late Paleozoic.