Depositional environment interpretation and development of the Renanué section (Upper Eifelian- Lower Frasnian; Aragonian Pyrenees, N. Spain)

 

Authors: Liao J-C, Königshof P, Valenzuela-Ríos JI, Schindler E

Published in: Bulletin of Geosciences, volume 83, issue 4; pages: 481 - 490; Received 4 July 2007; Accepted in revised form 15 December 2008;

Keywords: Middle-Upper Devonian, conodonts, microfacies analysis, sea-level curve, Spanish Pyrenees,

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Abstract

Microfacies analysis combined with palaeontological studies on Middle to Upper Devonian marine carbonates exposed at the section Renanué in the Pyrenees, northern Spain, allow recognition of an open-shelf environment. Several eustatic changes through the Givetian and lower Frasnian are recorded, discriminated by detailed conodont control. A transgressive pulse represented by a deepening trend from an open-shelf setting to deep-shelf environment around the Lower-Middle Givetian transition is more likely related to a regional event. A second important transgression is present in the upper half of the Middle varcus Zone (Middle Givetian); its correlation with the Taghanic Event is still a matter of discussion. A third important transgressive pulse is recognized close to the Middle-Upper varcus Zone boundary [see above], still in the Middle Givetian. A paraconformity spanning from, possibly, already the Upper varcus Zone through, at least, the upper disparilis Zone precludes further analysis of paleoenvironmental development at the Renanué section. The reason for this lack of sediments is unknown, but bottom currents have been considered as the explanation for such gaps in similar deposits of, approximately, the same age in several European and Moroccan sequences. Finally, a transgressive trend is inferred from the uppermost Givetian into the lowermost Frasnian also recognizable by a change in conodont biofacies that took place at the basal part of the Frasnian and is represented by the absence of Icriodus and the arrival of Klapperina and Mesotaxis.

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