Late Visean (Mississippian) calcareous microfossils from the Tarim Basin of western China

The Yeyungou Formation near the town of Wushi on the north side of the Tarim Basin contains late Visean (Tulsky-early Aleksinsky) calcareous foraminifers, algae and incertae sedis deposited in mixed siliciclastic-carbonate lithologies within shelf and slope-to-basinal settings. Similarities with coeval assemblages found in middle and western Asia and on the Russian Platform confirm the relatively unrestricted biotic communication between continental plates across the Paleotethyan seaway at that time. The carbonates at Wushi are both in situ and reworked from the collapse of upslope platform beds. The latter are composed of shallow-shelf, grain-supported bioclastic lithologies and microbial-skeletal algae buildups that are widely developed on contemporaneous Paleotethyan platforms. Species described in this paper include the foraminifers Carbotarima postfinitima n. gen. n. sp., Mediocris? liae n. name and Pojarkovella wushiensis n. emend., and the alga Asteroaoujgalia gibshmanae n. gen. n. sp. The microbiota is fully illustrated.