Conodonts are primitive vertebrates useful along the Paleozoic and Triassic all over the world to establish age and marine environment facies and to correlate these sedimentary sequences. Among intracratonic Brazilian basins, the Parnaíba Basin presents evidence of the record of this marine invasion in the Pennsylvanian carbonate sequences in the Upper Member of the Piauí Formation, particularly the fossiliferous Mocambo Carbonate sequence. The study of the paleontological content of these carbonate rocks is significant for the understanding of the paleoecological and paleoenvironmental perspective of the succession, and for its biostratigraphic refinement, in the case of fossil guides such as conodont. The description of the conodont species allowed the taxonomic classification, biochronostratigraphical refinement and inferences of paleoecologic conditions of the study area from comparisons of this occurrence with biozones established for Pennsylvanian of Amazonas Basin and from classic areas such as North America, Russia and China. The conodonts fauna includes three distinct species – Diplognathodus orphanus, Idiognathodus incurvus and Adetognathus lautus -registered in Mocambo Carbonate outcrops, marine portion of the Piauí Formation, in José de Freitas (PI) region and suggesting a late Bashkirian age for the sequence. Of these three species, the inedited occurrence of Diplognathodus orphanus, an excellent biostratigraphic marker of Atokan, are registered here. The occurrence of these taxa together with megaspore, ostracods, benthic foraminifers and teeth fish, suggest a paleoenvironment of very shallow marine platform. These data make possible to correlate Mocambo Carbonate with the marine section of the Amazonas Basin, allowing the correlation of the Piauí marine portion of Parnaíba Basin with the transgressive-regressive epicontinental Itaituba-Piauí Sea in Northwest South America, Western Gondwana, during the late Paleozoic.
|
