Sedimentary record of the “Austrian” tectonic pulse around the Aptian–Albian boundary in SE France, and abroad

Abstract

A tectonically-controlled forced regression occurred on the western margin of the French subalpine basin around the Aptian–Albian boundary. It nearly emptied the western part of the Vocontian Trough during the early and middle Albian. A compressional pulse associated with vertical movements along the Cevennes fault row and its satellites is inferred. This forced regression is correlated with an inverse transgressive trend, both in the Paris Basin and the northern subalpine chains. The black shales of the early Aptian OAE1a and Albian OAE1b of the Vocontian Trough succession occur within opposite regional sea level trends, transgressive for the former, regressive for the latter. The inferred tectonic pulse is also recorded on a broader scale from literature data. The overall picture also shows outphasings in relative sea level changes on a large scale, likely controlled by tectonics.

Keywords

• OAE1b
• French Alps
• Paris Basin
• Lower Cretaceous
• Sequence stratigraphy
• OAE1a
• OAE1b