This bright yellow curiosity landed on my desk unannounced. It comprises a series of papers presented at the 3rd Conference on African Palynology held at Witwatersrand University in Johannesburg, in September 1997. The volume starts with a Foreword and Preface, and an Obituary on Hermann Flohn (1912-1997) a Member of the Advisory Editorial Board of Palaeoecology of Africa. The bulk of the book is divided into three parts: Palaeopalynology (three papers), Quaternary and Recent Palynology (seven papers), and Pollen Morphology (seven papers), as well as three book reviews tucked in at the end. There is not an index. Generally speaking the presentation of the volume is very good with mostly excellent plate quality (although, regrettably, there are not many of these).
The three palaeopalynology papers are by Jim Doyle (The rise of angiosperms as seen in the African Cretaceous pollen record) – a rather wordy keynote contribution; Veena Srivastava and Emma Msaky (Albian-Cenomanian microfloral assemblages from Coastal Tanzania) – subsurface assemblages rich in pteridophyte spores, gymnosperm and angiosperm pollen, as well as dinoflagellate cysts, but with plates of a substandard quality;and R.E Dunay, P.A.R. Brenac and P.G. Edwards (Palynology and micropalaeontology of the Messinian-Zanclean sequences offshore Equatorial Guinea). The last paper is the most impressive from my point of view and comprises a reservoir-scale study of the Zafiro area. Although age constraints are poor (abundant Pediastrum are characteristic), the authors present an interesting account of the palaeoenvironments and their impact on a predictive model for reservoir sandstone distribution. Essentially, the reservoir sequence is governed by incised submarine canyons (originated during Messinian sea level drop), infilled by sediments transported from coastal plain settings. This paper is a neat example of the application of micropaleontology to sequence stratigraphy and reservoir modelling, and deserves a wider audience. I suspect, however, it may sink without much notice in this book. If applied micropaleontology is your bent, I recommend you check the volume out, if only for the value of the Dunay et al. paper.
James Powell
Dinosystems, UK