Stratigraphic Significance of the Cambrian Ichnofauna of the Zanskar Region, Ladakh Himalaya, India

The Cambrian succession in the Zanskar Basin of Tethys Himalaya contains an abundant ichnofossils like in the other Tethyan Himalayan successions. The ichnofossils are stratigraphically important as they occur below the trilobite body fossils and are useful to define the basal part of the Cambrian. The ichnofossil assemblage reported from the Zanskar Basin of Ladakh Himalaya is significant to demarcate the Early Cambrian age due to lack of other faunal elements so far. The body fossils of trilobites recorded from the overlying beds indicates the earliest part of the Middle Cambrian age. Sixteen ichnogenera identified include: Bifungites, Cruziana, Diplichnites, Dimorphichnus, Isopodichnus, Lockeia, Merostomichnites; Monomorphichnus, Psammichnites, Palaeophycus, Planolites, Rhizocorallium, Skolithos, Taphrhelminthopsis, Teichichnus, Trepitichnus and trilobite scratch marks etc. The ichnogenera reported so far from this part of the Tethyan Himalayan region belongs mostly to the traces of arthropod origin. The ichnofauna ranges in age from Lower Cambrian to late part of the Middle Cambrian. The ichnofaunal assemblage can be assigned to repichnial, cubichinial, pascichnial, to fodinichnial behaviour. The distribution of ichnofossils in the studied sections shows that the ichnofossils are predominately less in occurrence in the sections were trilobites dominates and higher in the successions the abundance of ichnofossils decreases.