The role of Paleopalynological investigations during the study of Quaternary deposits

Abstract

1. The main criterion for establishing the main stratigraphic subdivisions (system, division, stage) in all the deposits from Proterozoic to Neogen inclusive is their paleontological as well as paleopalynological character. On the basis of successive change of complexes of species and genera of animals and plants there have been constructed the stratigraphic and geochronological scales for these sediments.
2. Tile paleontological data cannot be used for stratigraphic subdivision and dating of the Quaternary deposits because during the Quaternary "period" there was no time for formation of new species of plants which emergence and extension help to judge about the age of sediments. According to the palaeobotanical data the absolute majority of existing species of plants appearance in Cretaceous, Paleogene and Neogene periods and the whole history of flora of the Quaternary "period" must be estimated by the time not exceeding the age (stage).
3. On the basis of the up-to-date paleopalynological investigations it is not possible to solve to what part of the section the investigated Quaternary deposits belong. The results of these investigations may explain only some questions of botanical geographic, climatic and physico-geographic character.
4. In order to use the paleopalynological data more effective during the study of the Quaternary deposits it is necessary to study spores and pollen in great detail than now. Thus the most important tasks are: (1) the establishment of plant species by their spore and pollen fossils; (2) the study of spore and pollen of existing species of plants and first of all those which live in the investigated region and in the adjacent territories in order to reconstruct the ways of sequence and time of these or those species using the spores and pollen finds in fossil state (3) the creation of "types" of spore-pollen diagrams for different parts of the Quaternary time and (4) the separation of plant species by their spores and pollen which can be the reliable correlates and further probably the age indicators.