Review of the Ediacaran-Lower Ordovician (pre-Sardic) stratigraphic framework of the Eastern Pyrenees, southwestern Europe

Abstract

The Ediacaran-Lower Ordovician successions exposed in the Eastern Pyrenees are updated and revised based on recent U-Pb zircon radiometric ages, intertonguing relationships of carbonate-dominated strata, and onlapping patterns marking the top of volcano-sedimentary complexes. A stratigraphic comparison with neighbouring pre-Variscan outcrops from the Montagne Noire (southern French Massif Central) and Sardinia is related to i) the absence of Cadomian deformation close to the Ediacaran-Cambrian boundary interval; ii) the presence of an episodic, Cadomian-related, acidic-dominant volcanism related to carbonate production punctuating the Ediacaran-Cambrian transition, similar to that recorded in the northern Montagne Noire; and iii) the lack of Guzhangian (Late Cambrian Epoch 3) regressive shoal complexes present in the Montagne Noire and probably in Sardinia.

Keywords

• lithostratigraphy
• chronostratigraphy
• palaeogeography
• cambrian
• nw gondwana