Palynology is the science dealing with the organic particles obtained by chemical processing of a sedimentary rock sample. Only a few grams of sediment may yield thousands of organic microfossils including dinoflagellate cysts, acritarchs, pollen and spores, etc. The study of their morphology, systematics and evolution yield important information on biostratigraphy, palaeoecology and palaeoenvironment.

Dinoflagellate cysts show a rapid evolution and are therefore very useful stratigraphic marker fossils in marine Mesozoic and Cenozoic sediments. The successive appearance of new species enables e.g. in the Middle Jurassic a very fine subdivision of strata in units lasting only 1 million to a few hundred thousand years.

This high resolution power in dating and correlating sedimentary rocks makes palynostratigraphy a valuable tool in applied geosciences.

Gonyaulacysta jurassica, dinoflagellate cyst, Oxfordianim

Palynofacies analysis is the study of all organic constituents of a rock sample by transmitted light microscopy. It yields information on stratigraphy, palaeogeography, palaeoecology and diagenesis and helps in characterising a sedimentary basin and its changes in time and space by using the composition of the organic facies.

For palynofacies analysis the sedimentary organic matter is classified by its origin in a land-derived (allochthonous) fraction, comprising phytoclasts, cuticular fragments, pollen grains and spores, and a marine (relatively autochthonous) fraction comprising dinoflagellate cysts, acritarchs, prasinophytes and foraminiferal test linings. Additionally amorphous organic matter may be present, which may have derived from continental or marine precursors. By counting these organic constituents and evaluating these data, characteristic parameters are identified, such as the ratio of continental to marine fraction (KONT/MAR), the ratio of opaque to translucent phytoclasts (OP/TR) and the relative abundance of marine plankton.