James M. Cole,^1,*,** Omer Babiker Abdelrahim,^2,3,*** Aaron W. Hunter,^4,*,**** Eckart Schrank,^5,***** Mohd Suhaili Bin Ismail<sup>3,******

1</sup>aTie-Point, Geoscience Limited, Rhiw Goch, Llanfihangel GM, Corwen, Conwy, LL21 9UG, United Kingdom;
²bPetroleum Laboratories, Research & Studies (PLRS) Ministry of Petroleum and Gas, Khartoum, Republic
³cDepartment of Geosciences, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Bandar Seri Iskandar, Tronoh 31750, Perak
⁴dDepartment of Applied Geology, Western Australian School of Mines, Curtin University, GPO Box U1987
⁵eInstitut fur Angewadte Geowissenschaften Technische Universitat Berlin ekr. EB 10, Strasse des 17 J

^*CONTACT James M. Cole tpg@jimcole.force9.co.uk; Aaron W. Hunter aaron.hunter@curtin.edu.au
^**James M. Cole has been a palynologist all his working career, save 18 months technical marketing and a short period in 1991 as ‘visiting prof.’ at RIPED, Beijing, China. His training in palynology commenced in 1978 with an MSc from the University of Sheffield, including a study of the Early Carboniferous of northern England, followed by a PhD on the non-marine Early Cretaceous of southern England. Jim has worked as a consultant Palynologist since 1981, starting in Singapore; since then he has had opportunities with various consultancies throughout SE Asia including Indochina, eastern Indonesia, West Papua/PNG Arafura Sea; Central Asia, India/Pakistan, and north, western and central Africa. He has dealt with most of the Phanerozoic North Sea and other UK/Norwegian continental shelf, plus UK onshore fracking. Jim has authored/co-authored around 30 nonexclusive industry studies worldwide aiming to integrate stratigraphical and other/geological data from all available sources, assisting exploration geologists and suggesting play concepts.
^***Omer Babiker Abdelrahim is Upstream Manager at the Petroleum Labs Research and Studies (PLRS), Sudanese Petroleum Corporation (SPC), Ministry of Petroleum & Gas (MoPG), Republic of Sudan, (formally the Central Petroleum Laboratories (CPL)); joining in 1999 he helped establish the Geology Section that includes both the biostratigraphy and sedimentology units. Omer graduated from Damascus University, Syria in 1994 with a BSc in Applied Geology. In 1999, he was awarded an MSc in palynology and palynostratigraphy from the University of Khartoum, Sudan. He joined the Geological Research Authority of the Sudan (GRAS) as mineral exploration geologist from 1997–1999. Omer holds a Ph.D. from University Teknologi PETRONAS, Malaysia, his thesis titled “Palynology and Sequence Stratigraphy of the Cretaceous-Cenozoic non-marine Strata of the Kaikang Trough, Muglad Rift Basin, South Sudan”. This work forms the basis of this research study.
^****Aaron W. Hunter is a palaeontologist, evolutionary palaeoecologist and biostratigrapher. He graduated from the School of Geological Sciences, Kingston University (UK) in 1999, specializing in petroleum geology, before completing his Masters in Palaeobiology at the University of Bristol (UK) in 2001. He was awarded his PhD in palaeoecology from Birkbeck, University of London and University College London (UK) in 2006. Aaron is senior lecturer at the Western Australian School of Mines, Curtin University, adjunct research fellow at the University of Western Australia and visiting researcher at the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Cambridge. He is a fellow of the Geological and Linnean Societies of London and life member of Clare Hall, Cambridge. Aaron has held postdoctoral fellowships at the CNRS (France), University of Tokyo and University of Göttingen. Aaron was senior lecturer at Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (2010–2013), serving as deputy director of the South East Asia Carbonate Research Laboratory.
^*****Eckart Schrank is a palaeontologist and palynologist at the Technical University Berlin (TUB), Germany. He studied geology at the Humboldt University Berlin, where he also received a doctorate degree for a paleozoological thesis. For over 25 years, his research interests have centred on the Mesozoic palynology of northeast Africa. Eckart's career in palynology started in the early 1980s when he joined the Special Research Project (Sonderforschungsbereich) ‘Geoscientific Problems in Arid Areas’ at TUB. Within this large, multidisciplinary project, he contributed a series of papers to the biostratigraphical subdivision of sedimentary basins in the desert regions of Egypt and Sudan, later extending these activities to other regions of Africa. Recently his research has focused on palynological aspects of the biostratigraphy and palaeoecology of the dinosaur-bearing Tendaguru Beds in southeast Tanzania. He served two consecutive terms (1992–2000) as a Councillor for the International Federation of Palynological Societies (IFPS), representing APP (Arbeitskreis für Palaöbotanik und Palynologie).
^******Mohd Suhaili Bin Ismail graduated from the University of Malaya in 1984 with a BSc in Geology, during which he conducted a study of Permian fusulinids as an undergraduate thesis. In 1985 he joined the Geological Survey Department (currently the Minerals and Geoscience Department) of Malaysia as a geologist in the Stratigraphy and Palaeontology Division. In addition to routine palaeontological work he had sole responsibility for the initial efforts to catalogue the fossils collections. In 2000 he was awarded the MEc in Natural Resource Economics from the University Putra Malaysia, Serdang, and in 2005 he gained his PhD from the University of Dundee, UK. Suhaili joined Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP), Perak, Malaysia as a Senior Lecturer in 2013.