Eustatic control on epicontinental basins: The example of the Stuttgart Formation in the Central European Basin (Middle Keuper, Late Triassic)

Abstract

The deposition of the Stuttgart Formation (‘Schilfsandstein’), commonly considered as a type-example of the Carnian Pluvial Event, was controlled by high frequent 4th order sequences that resulted in pre-, intra- and post-Schilfsandstein transgressions from Tethyan waters into the epicontinental Central European Basin (CEB). The pre-Schilfsandstein transgression flooded the CEB trough gates to the Southeast and resulted in a wide-spread inland sea that was characterised by increased biological productivity, predominantly oxic conditions and enabled the immigration of euryhaline marine fauna with plankton, ostracodes, fishes, bivalves and the gastropods Omphaloptychia suebica n. sp. and Settsassia stuttgartica n. sp. The rather short-term intra- and post-Schilfsandstein transgressions flooded the CEB from the Southwest and Southeast and established a shallow brackish inland sea that stretched up to North Germany. Both, the 4th and 3rd order sequences derived from the succession in the CEB correlate well with those derived from successions of Tethyan shelfs. Therefore pronounced circum-Tethyan eustatic cycles are evidenced and may have had considerable impact on prominent middle Carnian events: Reingraben turnover, Carnian Pluvial Event, Carnian Crisis and Mid Carnian Wet Intermezzo. The broad circum-Tethyan evidence of 106-year scale cycles suggests glacioeustatic sea-level changes even in the Triassic Greenhouse period.