Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous Radiolaria from chert blocks in the Lubok Antu melange, Sarawak, Malaysia

The Lubok Antu melange is composed of blocks of mudstone, shale, sandstone, chert, limestone, hornfels, basalt, gabbro and serpentinite embedded in a strongly cleaved, pervasively sheared, chloritised mudstone matrix. Chert blocks are common and widespread in the melange. Fifty-three species of Radiolaria were identified from 14 samples collected from these chert blocks. The Radiolaria can be grouped into three assemblages. Assemblage I is composed of 17 species. The presence of Ristola altissima (Rüst) and Parvicingula excelsa Pessagno and Blome is indicative of late Tithonian (Late Jurassic). Assemblage II consists of 21 species. The occurrence of an index form Staurosphaera septemporata (Parona) indicates middle Valanginian to Barremian age. The presence of Squinabollum fossilis (Squinabol), Archaeodictyomitra vulgaris Pessagno, Obesacapsula somphedia (Foreman), Thanarla praeveneta Pessagno, Pseudodictyomitra pseudomacrocephala (Squinabol), Rhopalosyringium majuroensis Schaaf, Stichomitra communis Squinabol and Holocryptocanium tuberculatum Dumitrica in Assemblage III suggests that the age of this assemblage is late Albian to Cenomanian. All the results show that there are three different ages of the chert blocks present in the Lubok Antu melange.