Carbonate Platform Megafacies of the Jurassic and Cretaceous Deposits of the Karst Dinarides
Carbonate Platform Megafacies of the Jurassic and Cretaceous Deposits of the Karst Dinarides
Blog Article
Platform carbonate deposits of the Karst Dinarides area have a stratigraphicrange from the Middle Triassic (or even Carboniferous insome places) to the Middle Eocene, forming a belt nearly 700 kmlong and, (after reduction by younger tectonics) 80–210 km wide.Besides their significant thickness (4500 to 8000 m) they arecharacterised by frequent lateral and vertical alternations of differentfacies, mostly associated with shallow marine environments.Environments ranging from peritidal through low-energy shallowsubtidal–lagoons, restricted inner platform shallows, high-energy tidalbars, beach and read more shoreface to reefal–perireefal predominate, but thereare also carbonate slope deposits and those representing temporarilydrowned platform facies and intraplatform troughs.
The Jurassic to Cretaceous part of this carbonate succession hasbeen subdivided into 19 megafacies units (9 for the Jurassic and 10for the Cretaceous), the majority of which represent an inner part ofthe ancient Adriatic Carbonate Platform.Marginal parts of the platformare mostly buried, either by the recent Adriatic Sea along theSW margin, or younger deposits along the NE margin; at some localitiessuch Jurassic and Cretaceous deposits are represented by debritesand/or carbonate turbidites.An additional short review of the overlyingUppermost Cretaceous and Palaeogene deposits swisse high strength magnesium powder berry (4 megafaciesunits) enabled a better insight into the post-platform evolution.
The very complex vertical and lateral alternation of differentmegafacies units, including emerged areas which were observedthroughout the studied sequence in different parts of the KarstDinarides, indicate the significant palaeogeographic dynamics of theregion.This variability resulted from interaction of the global eustaticsignal and local factors, including extensive organic production on thecarbonate platform and synsedimentary tectonics controlled by thespecific palaeogeographic position of the platform during its geologicalhistory.