The study area in southeastern Slovenia is part of the transitional zone between the internal and the external Dinarides. Within Jurassic bedded cherts there are up to 2 cm thick shale intercalations, consisting of laminated, soft, fine-grained, green to brown material whose origin has been in question. In the majority of Tethyan cherts, the interbedded material is reported to be volcanogenic and/or terrigenous, although a detailed mineralogical analysis of the material is lacking. An XRD analysis confirmed the presence of quartz, illite, chlorite and K-feldspar, which is the prevailing component in some samples. Major and trace element data exclude both a volcanogenic and an hydrothermal origin. Several discrimination diagrams indicate the upper crustal terrigenous nature of shales and a biogenic silica source. The source material was probably from a Variscan crust, which at the time of deposition had already been weathered to kaolinite, and some sporadic muscovite. The MnO/Al2O3 ratio suggests a slow sedimentation rate of cherts and a faster one for shales, which probably settled from distal turbidity currents. The negative Ce anomaly indicates prolonged contact with ocean water. Sediments were deposited on a Tethyan passive margin, originally as silica-rich carbonate beds intercalated with mud. During late diagenesis, the mixing of marine and meteoric waters caused the further silicification of limestone and simultaneous potassium enrichment of shale which led to their alteration into illite or chlorite and, in sediments already rich in K-minerals, into K-feldspar.