Latest Ordovician-earliest Silurian acritarchs and chitinozoans from subsurface samples in Jebel Asba, Kufra Basin, SE Libya

All the investigated samples in well JA-2 are dominated by a single chitinozoan species, Euconochitina moussegoudaensis Paris (in Le Hérissé et al., 2013). Based on correlation with chitinozoan-bearing strata around the Ordovician-Silurian boundary, the analysed samples from well JA-2 and from the UN-REMSA well are regarded as post-glacial, but still of either latest Hirnantian age, or at least no younger than earliest Rhuddanian. A well-diversified acritarch, miospore and cryptospore assemblage recorded in well JA-2 supports a marginal marine (nearshore) depositional environment. This assemblage is no older than earliest Rhuddanian yet the latest Hirnantian age of the assemblage cannot be completely ruled out as our current knowledge on the post-glacial, latest Hirnantian acritarch and miospore assemblages is poorly documented in North Africa.