THE LANDANA SECTION (CABINDA, ANGOLA): A NEW REFERENCE PALEOCENE – EOCENE DINOFLAGELLATE CYST RECORD FOR EQUATORIAL REGIONS?

The Landana section (Cabinda, Angola) has been a focus of interest for Belgian scientists since the late 19^th century. In a series of expeditions during the first part of the 20^thcentury, Edmond Dartevelle, a famous Belgian paleontologist and African explorer affiliated with the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA), was one of the many scientists and explorers who visited and studied the area. Dartevelle visited Landana and the Bas-Congo area (Belgian Congo, now D.R. Congo) in 1933, in 1937-1938 and one final time in 1949. During his fieldtrips Dartevelle collected, among others, countless rock and fossil vertebrate and invertebrate samples, including numerous specimens recovered from the Landana seaside cliff exposure. All of these samples have been stored in the collections of the RMCA ever since.

Forty-four of the rock samples from Dartevelle's Landana collection were palynologically processed and analysed using the standard maceration techniques as described by Jansonius and McGregor (1996). Dinoflagellates cysts recovered from the samples span the lower Paleocene to the lower Eocene and provide a new dinoflagellate stratigraphic record for the Paleocene - Eocene period in equatorial regions as well as providing constraints on the local palaeoenvironmental changes during that time. Dinoflagellate cyst occurrences were calibrated against foraminiferal (Lys et al., 1979) and carbon isotopic data allowing comparison and correlation against local and global records. Combination of quantitative and qualitative dinoflagellate cyst occurrences will contribute to the reconstruction of the Cenozoic depositional history of the westernmost (coastal marine) part of the Congo Basin.