Miospores from the Mississippian Horton group, eastern Canada

Fifty-three species of small spores, assigned to twenty-eight existing genera, are recorded from thirteen localities in the Horton Group. This group is a thick, non-marine sequence in eastern Canada and is of early Mississippian age. Twenty-one species are described as new. One of these, Schopfites augustus n. sp., represents the first record of Schopfites Kosanke in rocks of pre-Westphalian age. It is shown that two distinct assemblages of miospores are present in the Horton Group, which, in its type area, comprises the Horton Bluff Formation and the conformably overlying Cheverie Formation. One of the microfloras appears to be characteristic of the Horton Bluff, whereas the other younger assemblage has been encountered only in the type Cheverie. Stratigraphic implications of the microfloras are discussed, and the potential value of palynology in the resolution of Horton correlation problems is indicated. The Horton microfloras include certain species that occur in assemblages of comparable age from Russia, Britain, and Spitsbergen, but affiliations with previously described assemblages are not marked. The study constitutes an extension of Hacquebard's (1957) palynological investigation of two coals from the Horton Group, both of which contain the Horton Bluff microflora.