Heavy mineral-based provenance analysis of Mesozoic continental-marine sediments at the western edge of the Bohemian Massif, SE Germany: with special reference to Fe–Ti minerals and the crystal morphology of heavy minerals

Abstract

During the Mesozoic, the epicontinental Germanic Basin and the Regensburg Strait the latter being an embayment of the Tethys Ocean that had subsided into the Moldanubian Zone of the Central European Variscides were filled with terrigenous continental-marine sediments. Both sediments’ heavy mineral (HM) grains and aggregates have been studied in a drill section in the Wackersdorf area, SE Germany. The majority of them belong to the (semi)opaque group of Fe–Ti minerals. In Wackersdorf, the entire stratigraphy of the basin fill, which occurred between the Triassic and the Late Cretaceous, is well exposed. In addition to the chemical composition of HM, the morphology and texture of zircon, apatite and Fe–Ti compounds have been studied in a provenance-related mineral classification. Provenance analysis has yielded five discrete source rock lithologies: (1) Moldanubian H-T-metamorphics, (2) late Paleozoic (sub)volcanic rocks, (3) gneisses of the Tepla-Barrandian unit, (4) ophiolites of the Tepla-Barrandian unit, (5) silicified shear zones and quartz cores of pegmatites. The detrital minerals include zircon, tourmaline (dravite-schoerl), apatite, monazite (Ce–Th–La–Nd), xenotime, biotite, rutile, ilmenite, “nigrine” (ilmenite-rutile intergrowth), sphene, amphibole, staurolite, garnet and spinel (Cr–Mg–Al). Based on the allogenic Ti and Fe minerals, a magnetite-type source area (Eh > 0, near-surface felsic to intermediate (sub)volcanic rocks) was distinguished from an ilmenite-type source area (Eh < 0), deeply eroded crystalline basement rocks (gneiss, granite, shear zones). The latter may be subdivided into “nigrine –I” (deep) and “nigrine-II” (intermediate) subtypes, according to the level of erosion in the source area. At the Jurassic–Cretaceous transition, extrabasinal erosion provoked a noticeable variation of allogenic heavy minerals with the incisions of rivers into source rock lithologies (4) and (5). Uplift and erosion along the western edge of the Bohemian Massif took place contemporaneously with spreading and closure in the central parts of the adjacent Tethys Ocean.