Dapingian-lower Darriwilian (Ordovician) stratigraphic gap in the Faraghan Mountains, Zagros Ranges, south-eastern Iran

The Lower–Middle Ordovician sediments exposed in the Faraghan Mountains, south-eastern Zagros Ranges, represent a condensed succession of siliciclastic-dominated rocks rich in palynomorph assemblages (acritarchs and subsidiary chitinozoans) and sparse shelly concentrations bearing biostratigraphically significant brachiopods and conodonts.

The Lower Ordovician Zard-Kuh Formation comprises coarse-grained siliciclastic deposits rich in Cruziana ichnofossils. The lower 80 m of the overlying Seyahou Formation, late Floian to Katian in age, form a heterolithic succession composed of black and green shales, subarkoses, and silty limestones. Its lower part is punctuated by a centimetric phosphorarenite that contains lingulate brachiopods (Acanthorsa yaseri sp. nov.) and conodonts (Baltoniodus aff. B. triangularis Lindström and Drepanodus sp.) that suggest a latest Floian age. The top of the condensed phosphorarenite is marked by a considerable hiatus that ranges the Dapingian and early Darriwilian interval.

Overlying the hiatus, the Seyahou Formation comprises two fossiliferous levels, the oldest dated as mid-Darriwilian with chitinozoans characteristic of the Siphonochitina formosa Zone, and the youngest of the Katian Acanthochitina barbata Zone. Mid Ordovician phosphogenesis associated with starvation, reworking, resedimentation, and the onset of distinct stratigraphic gaps was a complex process recorded throughout the Arabian margin of Gondwana.

In the Zagros Ranges, maximum flooding and phosphate precipitation are suggested as the counterpart of the Helskjer Drowning Event of Baltoscandia and the third-order maximum flooding surface that punctuates the Siphonochitina formosa Zone in North Africa.