Analyse palynologique de l’argile lignitifère à ambre de l’Albien terminal d’Archingeay (Charente-Maritime, France)

An amber-bearing lignitic clay bed from Archingeay village (Charente-Maritime, France) yielded a well-preserved, rich and variegated palynoflora, whose origin is mixed between land plants and marine microflora. Its detailed analysis, through light and scanning electron microscopes, led to fulfil its inventory, then to propose a palaeoenvironmental reconstruction and to draw the palaeoclimate which prevailed over the region: an estuarine area under a rather humid, temperate to hot climate. A variety of ferns and resin-producing conifers grew near the shore-side and in the inward land; the angiospermous affinity is worthy of interest, although rather little diversified. Filamentous ‘algae’ grew in the rivers. The marine microflora, moderately diversified, comprises chitinous foraminifer linings, acritarchs and dinoflagellate cysts, among which the Uppermost Albian guide taxa are present; the predominance of neritic species remains somewhat moderate.