Stratigraphic Utility of Cretaceous Small Acritarchs

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Abstract
Acritarchs smaller than 10 .mu.m in length are abundant in sections of Cretaceous age drilled by the Deep Sea Drilling Project. Scanning electron images show that these apparently simple fossils possess intricate ornamental features which can be used to distinguish stratigraphically useful taxa. Their stratigraphic usefulness is shown by homotaxially correlated stratigraphic ranges in 3 widely separated sections of the western North Atlantic and by their occurrence in intervals largely devoid of other palynomorphs. An acritarch zonation is proposed, and is correlated directly with that previously published for dinoflagellates. Biostratigraphic evidence of a stratigraphic paraconformity at or near the contact between the Blake-Bahama and Hatteras Formations at Site 105 indicates a hiatus of late Aptian or early Albian age there. Other paraconformities may be present in the Valanginian and Albian. Thirty-one new species are described.

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