Palynology of samples from the Ballagan Formation of the Blairmulloch borehole

The results of palynological analysis of 30 samples from the Ballagan Formation in the Blairmulloch Borehole (NS 56050 28200), and 9 samples from outcrop of the same formation in Murroch Glen, Dumbartonshire (415 785) are reported. The samples were collected by Elwaleid Abbas Abusham of the University of Sheffield as part of PhD project.
CM Biozone (Tournaisian Tn3c) assemblages are present between 200.17m and 53.90m of the Blairmulloch Borehole. No specimens of Lycospora pusilla were recorded in this interval. The highest sample studied, from 5.75m, yielded a very poorly preserved assemblage consisting almost entirely of Densosporites spp., suggesting a possible Viséan or younger age. The samples from Murroch Glen are almost barren and contain no age-diagnostic taxa.
The findings of the study are very much at variance with those of Abusham (2000) who reported CM Biozone assemblages between 212.0 and 124.65m in the Blairmulloch Borehole, Pu Biozone assemblages between 123.3 and 23.90 m, and TS Biozone assemblages from 5.75m.
There are qualitative similarities between the ‘upper Ballagan’ assemblages at the Heads of Ayr (Stephenson et al., in press) and the section in Blairmulloch between 184.25 and 53.90m in that Acanthotriletes cf. macrogaleatus, Radiizonates mirabilis, and taxa similar to Dictyotriletes sagenoformis, L. malevkensis and S. microspinosus occur in both. On the basis of these qualitative similarities, a new updated correlation of Ballagan Formation sections across the MVS is presented in Fig. 2.