Page 270 - Carbonate Facies in Geologic History

Chapter IX

Reef Trends and Basin Deposits in Late Jurassic Facies
of Europe and the Middle East

The Late Jurassic (MaIm) of Europe and the Middle East together display some
of the most interesting and varied regional facies known to geologists. Some of the
significant and distinctive rock types in these strata include: coral-sponge reefs,
Purbeckian fresh-water beds, Solnhofen platy limestone and the geosynclinal red
nodular Ammonitico Rosso and pelagic Aptychus limestones.
Interpretations of some of these facies have puzzled sedimentologists for more
than 100 years. Fortunately, no stratigraphic sections in the world are better
known and no more detailed paleontologic zonation exists than in the Jurassic of
Europe-thanks mainly to study of the prolific ammonite faunas. For this reason,
facies analysis of these beds can be done with particular accuracy and within a
reliable time-stratigraphic framework. Arkell (1956) and Holder (1964) presented
compilations of stratigraphic data for these beds. The Late Jurassic stages (Table
IX-I) include more than 20 widely correlatable ammonite zones as conceived by
Arkell and later paleontologists. The regional review which follows describes the
general depositional patterns across western Europe, the Mediterranean, and the
Middle East, delineating shelf-margin reef growth, back-reef oolite and evaporites,
and mentioning some paleoclimatic implications. An extensive European Jurassic
literature exists. For this reason the review is brief and discusses in depth only a
few of the most interesting rock types.

Table IX-l. Correlation table of Late Jurassic in Europe
Arke1l1956 Tethyan Southern Germany
Series Stages Stages Malm units
Top reefs in
Purbeckian Bavaria
Tithonian
Portlandian Top reefs in
Zeta 6 Schwabia-
Franconia
a
ca Upper
~ Kimmeridgian
.~ Zeta 1-2
00
00 1------ ------ Solnhofen
....
(o;j
...., Lower Lower Epsilon Top reefs in I
;:l
<Ll
-;;; Kimmeridgian Kimmeridgian
...l Delta
Swiss Jura
Gamma
Beta
Oxfordian Oxfordian
Alpha