註釋 The Lower Pennsylvania!! Series of the proposed Pennsylvanian System stratotype in Virginia and West Virginia is composed of the Pocahontas and New River Formations. One hundred twelve samples of seat rock, coal, and roof rock were collected from 29 localities. Samples from 19 of these localities yielded palynomorphs. It has been possible to trace the range zones of Lycospora noctuina Butterworth and Williams and Densosporites irregularis Hacquebard and Barss upwards to coal beds associated with the Nuttall Sandstone Member near the top of the New River Formation. Schulzospora rara Kosanke is poorly represented in these samples, but the range zone of this taxon extends into the lower part of the Kanawha Formation or the Middle Pennsylvanian Series of the stratotype. The first Pennsylvanian occurrence of Laevigatosporites is near the top of the New River Formation close to the New River-Kanawha boundary. This fact may prove of value in the placement of this boundary in other areas of the Appalachian basin and elsewhere. This investigation was an experiment to ascertain what palynological information could be obtained from organic matter that has undergone extensive thermal alteration. This alteration was most pronounced in the Pocahontas and lower half of the New River Formations. The color changes in palynomorphs from yellow and readily transparent to black and opaque is the result of thermal alteration. Organic matter preserved in non-coal lithologies, such as seat rock and roof shale, is less affected by thermal alteration than is organic matter preserved in coal. Consequently, most palynomorph data from the Pocahontas and lower half of the New River Formations were obtained from non-coal samples. This report provides data relating palynomorph color to degree of thermal alteration as well as listing the occurrence of some selected taxa useful in correlation studies. It would be useful to augment this data with additional samples from Lower Pennsylvanian coal beds from southwestern Virginia which are known to yield more abundant and better preserved palynomorphs. 