Review of the Ordovician stratigraphy and fauna of the Anarak Region in Central Iran

The Ordovician sedimentary succession of the Pol-e Khavand area, situated on the northern margin of the Yazd block, has important differences from those in other parts of Central Iran. It has been established that the presumably terminal Cambrian to Lower Ordovician volcano-sedimentary Polekhavand Formation, exposed in the Pol-e Khavand area, has non-conformable contact with greenschists of the Doshakh Metamorphic Complex. The succeeding, mainly siliciclastic Chahgonbad Formation contains low to moderately diverse faunal assemblages, including brachiopods, cephalopods, trilobites and tentaculitids. The Darriwilian age of the lower part of the formation is well established by the co-occurrence of brachiopod genera Camerella, Phragmorthis, Tritoechia and Yangtzeella. The associated rich cephalopod fauna is different from the Darriwilian cephalopod associations of the Alborz terrane and may show some affinity with warm water faunas of North China and South Korea. It is likely that the Mid Ordovician fauna recovered from the lower part of the Chahgonbad Formation settled in the area sometime during a warming episode in the late Darriwilian. By contrast the low diversity mid Katian brachiopod association includes only three taxa, which occur together with the trilobite Vietnamia cf. teichmulleri and abundant, but poorly preserved tentaculitids questionably assigned to the genus Costatulites. This faunal association bears clear signatures linking it to the contemporaneous cold water faunas of the Arabian, Mediterranean and North African segments of Gondwana. Four brachiopod species recovered from the Chahgonbad Formation, including Hibernodonta lakhensis, Hindella prima, Lomatorthis? multilamellosa and Yangtzeella chupananica are new to science.