Cenozoic radiolaria from European Platform: a review

Stratigraphic correlations between western and eastern European areas under a clear boreal influence are difficult because different paleogeographic domains (boreal vs tropical) are involved in eastern countries and most of the boreal data which were acquired in eastern countries used technical equipment and methodologies which are not the same as in western countries, and also the Russian literature is not easily accessible, is usually in cyrillic and frequently lacks good illustrations.

From a review of Cenozoic Peri-Tethyan radiolarian investigations, it has become clear that there are problems with respect to correlating western and Russian studies, namely: Russian geographical and geological terminology, which is difficult for foreign scientists to understand; differing approaches to the establishment of a biozonation and hence to correlations; and species determination (and systematics) which were made, in some cases, on the basis of thin sections, or badly preserved fauna. In this article we give an explanation of some Russian geographical and geological terms. Information about the age, precise locality (with latitude and longitude) of Cenozoic deposits discovered in sections and wells of the Peri-Tethys basin along with a brief lithology, stratigraphy and biostratigraphy, based on micro and macrofauna investigations, for different regions is presented in tabular form. And all palaeoenvironmental information is shown on the maps. The goal of this paper is to correlate various biological timescales from western to easternmost Europe with emphasis on data collection from eastern Europe.

Stratigraphic correlation of Upper Palaeozoic through Recent high latitude rocks has been hampered by a lack of world-wide cooperative studies. Now that scientific exchange is easier between Eastern and Western workers, a rapid solution of many stratigraphic problems may be achieved through joint projects. Before starting on this detailed comparison of eastern and western studies we here present a review of previous works.