CALCAREOUS ALGAE OF THE MIDDLE EAST 79 



"TERQUEMELLA s.l. " sp. 



Minute circular cross-sections of marginally sporangial bodies have been noted not 

 uncommonly in Upper Jurassic and Lower and Upper Cretaceous rocks. These are 

 presumably algal remains corresponding morphologically to Terquemella, but are 

 unlikely to originate from Dactyloporeae like the Tertiary Terquemella spp. They 

 show insufficient detail to be of much stratigraphic value. Similar bodies have been 

 described elsewhere e.g. from the French Jurassic (Dangeard 1931). 



Genus TEUTLOPORELLA Pia 1912 



Teuthporella is mostly a Triassic genus, but Upper Jurassic species have been 

 described from Switzerland (T. obsoleta Carozzi 1954) and Italy (T. socialis Praturlon 

 1963b). At Jebel Buwaida, Oman, masses of derived older rocks occur in the Upper 

 Cretaceous Hawasina-complex. This rubble has yielded various Upper Jurassic 

 algae, including fragmentary Teutloporella sp. This derived material is probably 

 from an Oman occurrence in situ of one of these species, but is insufficient for descrip- 

 tion. 



Genus THAUMATOPORELLA Pia 1927 



Thaumatoporella was erected by Pia (1927) as a dasyclad genus for the Upper 

 Cretaceous alga described as Gyroporella parvovesiculifera (Raineri 1922). Sartoni 

 & Crescenti (1959) have shown that Thaumatoporella itself, although the name is 

 valid, is not a dasyclad, and that it is the same as Polygonella (Elliott 1957) and 

 Lithoporella elliotti (Emberger 1958b) . It is a single-layer lamellar or encrusting alga 

 of uncertain affinities, and only occasional specimens resemble a dasyclad in section. 

 Remarkable for its long range (Rhaetic to Senonian), it is common at many levels in 

 the circum-Mediterranean and Middle East, but its description has no place here. 



Genus THYRSOPORELLA Giimbel 1872 



Diagnosis. Calcified tubular dasyclad showing successive verticils of radial 

 branches, each branch showing several repeated divisions into smaller branches and 

 branchlets, all but the last divisions swollen. 



Thyrsoporella silvestrii Pfender 

 (PI. 23, figs. 1-4 ; PI. 24, fig. 5) 



1940 Thyrsoporella silvestrii Pfender : 227. 



1955b Thyrsoporella silvestrii Pfender ; Elliott : 129, pi. 1, fig. 10. 



i960 Thyrsoporella silvestrii Pfender ; Elliott : 225, 226. 



1966 Thyrsoporella silvestrii Pfender ; Massieux : 113, pi. 1, figs. 1-8. (Part 2 of this study 

 (see Bibliography), in which Mile. Massieux refers T. silvestrii to Belzungia, was seen too late 

 for proper discussion in this work. However, the specimens now studied from the Middle 

 East show the solid walls of Belzungia, but the branch-system appears like that of Thyrso- 

 porella). 



Description. Thick-walled, tubular, cylindrical calcareous dasyclad, length 



