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Metre-scale cycles in ancient peritidal carbonate facies have long been thought to represent the product of shallow water carbonate accumulation under orbitally controlled sea-level oscillations. The theory remains somewhat controversial, however, and a contrasting view is that these cycles are the product of intrinsic, and perhaps random, processes. Owing to this debate, it is important to understand the conditions that do, or do not, favour the preservation of orbital forcing, and the precise stratigraphic expression of that forcing. In this work, a one-dimensional forward model of carbonate accumulation is used to test the ability of orbitally paced sea-level changes to reconstruct cyclicities and cycle stacking patterns observed in greenhouse peritidal carbonate successions. Importantly, the modelling specifically tests insolation-based sea-level curves that probably best reflect the pattern and amplitude of sea-level change in the absence of large-scale glacioeustasy. This study found that such sea-level histories can generate precession and eccentricity water depth/facies cycles in models, as well as eccentricity-modulated cycles in precession cycle thicknesses (bundles). Nevertheless, preservation of orbital forcing is highly sensitive to carbonate production rates and amplitudes of sea-level change, and the conditions best suited to preserving orbital cycles in facies/water depth are different to those best suited to preserving eccentricity-scale bundling. In addition, it can be demonstrated that the preservation of orbital forcing is commonly associated with both stratigraphic incompleteness (missing cycles) and complex cycle thickness distributions (for example, exponential), with corresponding implications for the use of peritidal carbonate successions to build accurate astronomical timescales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Middle Triassic Geli Khana Formation is one of the important formations for the opportunity to study the Anisian-Ladinian facies and depositional environment in northern Iraq. Two sections (outcrop and subsurface) were selected to study the litho- and microfacies of the Geli Khana succession and to interpret its depositional environment. The formation is divided into five lithofacies (A-E) comprising dolomite, dolomitic, and marly limestones; calcareous shaly and marly limestones; limestone with dolomitic and marly limestones; black shales; and evaporites. Five microfacies were recognized, these include mudstone, silty mudstone, graded mudstone, oyster (bioclastic) wackstone, and laminated silty oyster packstone microfacies. Generally, the studied succession represents shallow reducing marine environment with peritidal carbonate facies in which three environments, supratidal, intertidal, and subtidal, were recognized. The deeper subtidal environment dominates in the northern parts of the basin while the shallower supratidal is common in the southern parts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The studied carbonates are present within the middle part of the Tertiary siliciclastic dominated succession in Haddat Ash Sham area. This succession consists of conglomerates, sandstones, siltstones, mudstones, and ironstones arranged in upward coarsening and fining cycles of intermittent depositional environments ranging from fluvial coastal plain to shallow marine. The carbonates represent deposition in slightly restricted depositional environments during periods of very low clastic input. The studied two carbonate sections show a pronounced lateral and vertical changes from predominantly dolostones in the west to mixed dolostones and limestones in the east. Both sections began by egg yellow dolomitic lime mudstones and fine crystalline dolomite which indicate the formation of dolomite by late depositional to early diagenetic recrystallization of precursor Fe and Mg lime mud. During this time period, the western part of the study area continues in the deposition of Fe and Mg lime mud in slightly restricted depositional environments and formation of interbedded fine and coarse crystalline dolostones in coarsening-upward cycles. In the eastern part, the depositional environments become deeper and more circulated with short-lived periods of fluctuation in sea level and hence the deposition of foraminiferal wackestone, bioclastic packstones, and bioclastic rudstone in coarsening and shallowing-upward cycles. Both the western and eastern parts of the study area are terminated by characteristic yellow coarse crystalline phosphatic dolomite which indicate ultimate stages of shoaling and increasing the level and concentration of phosphorous in the restricted water and hence the formation of in situ and reworked phosphatic components. The diagenetic processes affected the dolostones and limestones microfacies associations include: dolomitization of Fe and Mg-rich lime mud, hematitization, calcitization, gypsification, and phosphatization of dolomite. Neophormation and recrystallization of micritic matrix and micritic intraclasts as well as shell fragments are the main diagenetic processes affected the limestones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Platform carbonate sediments of Liassic age cropping out in the area of the Pigadi-Fokianos Gulf (SE of Leonidion, Peloponnesus) have been investigated in order to determine their depositional environment. Facies analysis allowed the recognition of several microfacies types and their cyclic stacking pattern. The carbonates were deposited in a restricted inner platform environment (lagoon-peritidal domain) and are arranged into small-scale shallowing-upward cycles. Palaeosol horizons containing typical pedogenic features are developed on the top of the peritidal facies or are directly superimposed on subtidal deposits, forming diagenetic caps. This implies repeated sea-level fluctuations and periodic emersion episodes. The presence of orbitally forced cyclicity though is mostly probable, cannot be clearly documented by the available data. The studied carbonates are comparable with other coeval analogous peritidal cycles of the same age along the southern margin of the Tethys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of Quaternary extensional faults indicate that they have instantaneous amounts of throw (0·4 to 4 m), average slip rates (0·05 to 2·8 m kyr−1) and frequency of recurrence (<40 000 years) accounting for the accommodation space required for the accumulation of peritidal carbonate parasequences (PCPs). Hangingwall sites and graben are characterized by fault down-dropping together with regional subsidence, and footwall sites and horsts by fault-related uplift alternating with periods of regional subsidence. The relative sea-level curves generated by these processes operating in a maritime rift setting are used as inputs to a forward stratigraphic modelling program SedTec2000 to simulate how fault-related changes in accommodation space can account for high-frequency PCP formation. Each instantaneous fault slip generates a flooding surface or aggradation in hangingwall and graben settings. High-frequency cycles in hangingwall sites are either symmetric (deepening then shallowing upward) or asymmetric (shallowing-upward). The major factor controlling cycle types is the balance between rates of carbonate accumulation and generation of accomodation space. High-frequency cycles in footwall sites and horsts comprise shallow subtidal facies, with no distinctive bathymetric trends, capped by erosional boundaries generated by footwall uplift. The modelled cycles are of the same thickness, with bathymetric trends and frequency to cycles commonly interpreted to be due to orbitally driven eustatic sea-level changes or autocyclic processes. These numerical experiments demonstrate that high-frequency PCPs can be generated by tectonic, fault-related processes, a hypothesis that is frequently discounted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The sedimentology and cyclic stratigraphy of palaeokarst structures in Aptian peritidal carbonate successions are interpreted using field and laboratory microfacies analyses of closely spaced samples from measured outcrop stratigraphic sections in southwest Turkey. Cycles displaying shallowing-upward metre-scale cyclicity are generally composed of lime mudstones/wackestones/packestones at the bottom and stromatolites or lime mudstones with charophytes and ostracods at the top. Subaerial exposure structures such as in situ karst breccias, dissolution vugs/pipes, mud cracks and sheet cracks are encountered at the top of the cycles. The presence of limestone layers between the successive karst breccia levels indicates that they are in situ palaeokarst structures, not recent karstifications or deep penetration from the upper palaeokarst surface down to the older strata. Palaeokarst breccia deposits are interpreted as mantling breccia formed as a result of epikarstification. Three main palaeokarst levels are recorded in nearly all sections. The sedimentology of the palaeokarst breccias, their position in cyclic peritidal carbonates and the biostratigraphic framework are used to trace the record of the global mid-Aptian sea-level fall in the southwest Taurides. The successive occurrences of three karst breccia levels close to the mid-Aptian sea-level fall correspond to falling periods of high-amplitude sea-level fluctuation within a late high-stand or early fall condition of a third-order sea level. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

During the Late Albian, Early and Middle Cenomanian in the NW part of the Adriatic Carbonate Platform (presentday Istria) specific depositional systems characterised by frequent lateral and vertical facies variations were established within a formerly homogeneous area, ranging from peritidal and barrier bars to the offshore-transition zone. In southern Istria this period is represented by the following succession: thin-bedded peritidal peloidal and stromatolitic limestones (Upper Albian); well-bedded foreshore to shoreface packstones/grainstones with synsedimentary dliding and slumping (Vraconian-lowermost Cenomanian); shoreface to off-shore storm-generated limestones (Lower Cenomanian); massive off-shore to shoreface carbonate sand bodies (Lower Cenomanian); prograding rudist bioclastic subaqueous dunes (Lower to Middle Cenomanian); rudist biostromes (Lower to Middle Cenomanian), and high-energy rudist and ostreid coquina beds within skeletal wackestones/packstones (Middle Cenomanian). Rapid changes of depositional systems near the Albian/Cenomanian transition in Istria are mainly the result of synsedimentary tectonics and the establishment of extensive rudist colonies producing enormous quantities of bioclastic material rather than the influence of eustatic changes. Tectonism is evidenced by the occurrence of sliding scars, slumps, small-scale synsedimentary faults and conspicuous bathymetric changes in formerly corresponding environments. Consequently, during the Early Cenomanian in the region of southern Istria, a deepening of the sedimentary environments occurred towards the SE, resulting in the establishment of a carbonate ramp system. Deeper parts of the ramp were below fair-weather wave base (FWWB), while the shallower parts were characterised by high-energy environments with extensive rudist colonies, and high organic production leading to the progradation of bioclastic subaqueous dunes. This resulted in numerous shallowing- and coarsening-upwards clinostratified sequences completely infilling formerly deeper environments, and the final re-establishment of the shallow-water environments over the entire area during the Middle Cenomanian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We carried out combined micropaleontological, microfacies and multivariate statistical analyses of benthic foraminiferal assemblages on a previously undocumented lowermost Cretaceous carbonate succession from the western part of the Getic Carbonate Platform (Pui-Bănița zone, Southern Carpathians). The microfacies analysis and interpretations suggest that these limestones were developed under peritidal settings within different zones of a shallow-water inner platform paleoenvironment (bioclastic grainy bars, subtidal–intertidal flats and intertidal–supratidal ponds), where benthic foraminifera, microbial microstructures and calcareous algae were the main carbonate producers. The well-preserved micropaleontological content (mostly benthic foraminiferal assemblages) is important for lowermost Cretaceous Neotethyan biostratigraphy and allows the recognition of the Valanginian stage within this part of the Getic Carbonate Platform. The multivariate data processing (diversity indices, cluster analyses and principal components analyses) performed on the benthic foraminifera assemblages provide valuable information about their compositional patterns, diversity trends and spatial distribution with respect to the main facies zones. The results obtained through these analyses are extremely useful for the recognition of common/different paleoecological features and for a more precise interpretation of depositional paleoenvironments. • Combined micropaleontological, microfacies and multivariate statistical analyses. • Important biostratigraphic arguments for the Berriasian–lower Valanginian. • Diversity indices reflect strong facies control over species richness and the spatial distribution of species. • A more accurate interpretation of the paleoenvironmental/paleoecological conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]