CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FACIES AND RADIOLITID PALEOENVIRONMENT OF THE UPPER CENOMANIAN SHALLOW-WATER SUCCESSION FROM THE SOUTHERN PART OF THE ADRIATIC CARBONATE PLATFORM, NORTHWESTERN SIDE OF KORČULA ISLAND, CROATIA

Abstract

Upper Cenomanian limestones from the northwestern part of the island of Korčula in Croatia are shallow-water Chondrodonta-level deposits that represent a lateral equivalent of a foundered platform paleoenvironment. The succession consists of peritidal limestones organised in irregular shallowing-upward cycles, indicating the influence of sinsedimentary tectonics in the background of their formation. The peak of the transgression is marked by bioclastic rudstones, which represent the most open paleoenvironmental conditions. Radiolitids are present through biostromal floatstones-rudstones where individuals thrive as elevator or clinger palaeoecological morphotypes, indicating that the rate of carbonate sedimentation is a key palaeoecological factor in their presence/absence within a subtidal paleoenvironment.

Keywords

• Rudists
• palaeoecology
• shallow-water carbonates
• foundered platform
• Adriatic Carbonate Platform