Once thought to be prevailingly barren of palynomorphs, sediments from all of the known Newark basins have now yielded correlatable palynofloras. However, for various reasons, only poorly preserved florules (Danville-Dan River basin) or scarce productive zones (Fundy basin) have been found in some of the basins. Sedimentation in the Newark rift zone apparently began in late Ladinian to late Carnian time along most of the front. New analytical data from a buried basin in southern Georgia now extend this observation about 400 km (two stages) farther south. From south Georgia to the Richmond basin in Virginia, the youngest sediments are Carnian or Carnian/Norian. In the Culpeper basin, Virginia, new information indicates sedimentation beginning during the Carnian, in keeping with the other southern basins. However, in the Culpeper basin and all of the northern basins, sedimentation persisted much longer. Latest Triassic to late Liassic floras are found in all of them. Palynoflorules as young as Toarcian have been studied in the Hartford-Deerfield basin of Connecticut-Massachusetts. Ultimately, these dates depend on correlation with palynofloras from classic marine fossil zones in south-central Europe, work which is in flux and progressing rapidly in European laboratories, boding probable changes in the Newark basin palynostratigraphic framework.

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