Palaeoenvironments of northwestern Bulgaria and northeastern Serbia during the Jurassic

Abstract

Jurassic rocks in the Danube Region of northwestern Bulgaria and northeastern Serbia have been the subject of numerous earlier studies that have shown notable similarities between their sedimentary facies and depositional environments. In terms of regional palaeotectonic zonation, this area represents the westernmost parts of the Vidin Early–Middle Jurassic Complex Horst and the Mihaylovgrad Early–Middle Jurassic Graben in NW Bulgaria, as well as the easternmost part of the Lower Danubicum in NE Serbia, which collectively take part of the Jurassic Moesian Platform. For compiling an overall conception of the palaeoenvironments that existed during the Jurassic, nine palaeoenvironmental sketch maps, from the Aalenian to the late Tithonian, have been composed in this study, based on reinterpretation of the data borrowed from previous literature. It became evident that the Middle Jurassic sedimentary successions of the Danube Region record an evolution from an initially isolated lacustrine-palustrine depositional setting (Aalenian) to rapidly expanding shallow to moderately deeper-marine sandy-calcareous setting (late Bajocian–early Callovian). From the middle Callovian and onwards, during the Late Jurassic, the region became an area of laterally extensive pelagic and platform carbonate deposition. This interpretation is consistent with the available earlier data, but it links the facies and their respective settings from NW Bulgaria to NE Serbia, which has not been made to date and will be of benefit for future regional correlations.