Late Ordovician (post–Sardic) rifting branches in the North Gondwanan Montagne Noire and Mouthoumet massifs of southern France

Upper Ordovician–Lower Devonian rocks of the Cabrières klippes (southern Montagne Noire) and the Mouthoumet massif in southern France rest paraconformably or with angular discordance on Cambrian–Lower Ordovician strata. Neither Middle–Ordovician volcanism nor associated metamorphism is recorded, and the subsequent Middle Ordovician stratigraphic gap is related to the Sardic phase. Upper Ordovician sedimentation started in the rifting branches of Cabrières and Mouthoumet with deposition of basaltic lava flows and lahar deposits (Roque de Bandies and Villerouge formations) of continental tholeiite signature (CT), indicative of continental fracturing. The infill of both rifting branches followed with the onset of: (1) Katian (Ka1–Ka2) conglomerates and sandstones (Glauzy and Gascagne formations), which have yielded a new brachiopod assemblage representative of the Svobodaina havliceki Community; (2) Katian (Ka2–Ka4) limestones, marlstones and shales with carbonate nodules, reflecting development of bryozoan-echinoderm meadows with elements of the Nicolella Community (Gabian and Montjoi formations); and (3) the Hirnantian Marmairane Formation in the Mouthoumet massif that has yielded a rich and diverse fossil association representative of the pandemic Hirnantia Fauna. The sealing of the subaerial palaeorelief generated during the Sardic phase is related to Silurian and Early Devonian transgressions leading to onlapping patterns and the record of high-angle discordances.Research was funded by projects CGL2010-39417, CGL2012-39471 and CGL2013-48877-P from Spanish MINECO.Peer reviewe

Cambrian–early Ordovician volcanism across the South Armorican and Occitan domains of the Variscan Belt in France: Continental break-up and rifting of the northern Gondwana margin

The Cambrian–lower Ordovician volcanic units of the South Armorican and Occitan domains are analysed in a tectonostratigraphic survey of the French Variscan Belt. The South Armorican lavas consist of continental tholeiites in middle Cambrian–Furongian sequences related to continental break-up. A significant volcanic activity occurred in the Tremadocian, dominated by crustal melted rhyolitic lavas and initial rifting tholeiites. The Occitan lavas are distributed into five volcanic phases: (1) basal Cambrian rhyolites, (2) upper lower Cambrian Mg-rich tholeiites close to N-MORBs but crustal contaminated, (3) upper lower–middle Cambrian continental tholeiites, (4) Tremadocian rhyolites, and (5) upper lower Ordovician initial rift tholeiites. A rifting event linked to asthenosphere upwelling took place in the late early Cambrian but did not evolve. It renewed in the Tremadocian with abundant crustal melting due to underplating of mixed asthenospheric and lithospheric magmas. This main tectono-magmatic continental rift is termed the “Tremadocian Tectonic Belt” underlined by a chain of rhyolitic volcanoes from Occitan and South Armorican domains to Central Iberia. It evolved with the setting of syn-rift coarse siliciclastic deposits overlain by post-rift deep water shales in a suite of sedimentary basins that forecasted the South Armorican–Medio-European Ocean as a part of the Palaeotethys Ocean.This research was funded by project CGL2013-48877-P from Spanish MINECO.Peer reviewe

New Early Cambrian bivalved arthropods from southern France

International audienceThe Lower Cambrian Pardailhan Formation of the Montagne Noire (Southern France) has yielded a diverse fossil assemblage including bivalved arthropods (the bradoriids Monceretia erisylvia gen. et sp. nov., Cambria danvizcainia sp. nov. and Matthoria? sp., together with Isoxys sp.) associated with trilobites, hyolithids, inarticulate brachiopods, sponge spicules, ichnofossils and chancelloriid sclerites. This assemblage provides new evidence about the biodiversity of Early Cambrian marine communities in palaeocontinentalGondwana. The bradoriids are Cambriidae, a familywith widespread distribution in offshore shelf marine environments during Early Cambrian times. The present study confirms the presence of cambriids within a subtropical latitudinal belt that encompasses Laurentia, Siberia and the Gondwanan margins from Southern France to South China. Although knowledge of the distribution of fossil cambriids is patchy, at the generic level they appear to be provincial, with Petrianna from Laurentia, Shangsiella and Auriculatella from South China, Cambria from Siberia and Gondwana (Armorica), and Monceretia gen nov. from Gondwana (Armorica). The presence of Isoxys in the Montagne-Noire confirms the cosmopolitan distribution of this genus in the Early and Middle Cambrian tropics. Cambriid bradoriids occupy a biostratigraphically narrow time interval, probably equating to part of the Atdabanian and Botomian stages of Russian terminology. Their presence in the Pardailhan Formation supports the notion of a Botomian age, determined from archaeocyathan evidence. The North American bradoriid genus Matthoria, also possibly present in the Pardailhan Formation, is reassigned to the Cambriidae

Découverte de nouveaux sites à préservation exceptionnelle dans l'Ordovicien du Massif armoricain et de la Montagne Noire (France) : une approche prédictive

International audienc

Late Ordovician (post-Sardic) rifting branches in the North Gondwanan Montagne Noire and Mouthoumet massifs of southern France

International audienceUpper Ordovician–Lower Devonian rocks of the Cabrières klippes (southern Montagne Noire) and the Mouthoumet massif in southern France rest paraconformably or with angular discordance on Cambrian–Lower Ordovician strata. Neither Middle-Ordovician volcanism nor associated metamorphism is recorded, and the subsequent Middle-Ordovician stratigraphic gap is related to the Sardic phase. Upper Ordovician sedimentation started in the rifting branches of Cabrières and Mouthoumet with deposition of basaltic lava flows and lahar deposits (Roque de Bandies and Villerouge formations) of continental tholeiite signature (CT), indicative of continental fracturing.The infill of both rifting branches followed with the onset of (1) Katian (Ka1–Ka2) conglomerates and sandstones (Glauzy and Gascagne formations), which have yielded a new brachiopod assemblage representative of the Svobodaina havliceki Community; (2) Katian (Ka2–Ka4) limestones, marlstones, and shales with carbonate nodules, reflecting development of bryozoan-echinoderm meadows with elements of the Nicolella Community (Gabian and Montjoi formations); and (3) the Hirnantian Marmairane Formation in the Mouthoumet massif that has yielded a rich and diverse fossil association representative of the pandemic Hirnantia Fauna. The sealing of the subaerial palaeorelief generated during the Sardic phase is related to Silurian and Early Devonian transgressions leading to onlapping patterns and the record of high-angle discordances

Revisiting the Cambrian of Miquelon Island, a French prolongation of Newfoundland’s Burin Peninsula

Trabajo presentado en el International Symposium on the Ediacaran-Cambrian Transition (ISECT), celebrado en St. John's, Newfoundlan (Canadá), del 15 al 29 de junio de 2017The recent publication of the St. Pierre-et-Miquelon geological map by the French Geological Survey (BRGM) has highlighted some of the stratigraphic unconformities and uncertain chronostratigraphic assignations that characterize the southwestern prolongation of the Newfoundland’s Burin Peninsula. The northeastern colourful coastal creeks of Langlade (or Little Miquelon), connected across a slender sand isthmus to the northern Grand Miquelon, allows a complete reconstruction of the Cambrian stratigraphic framework, in ascending order: (i) the heterolithic Chapel Island Formation, composed of at least 150 m of variegated sandstones, shales and isolated limestone nodules and centimetre-thick interbeds, which have yielded skeletonized microfossils such as Aldanella attleborensis, “Ladatheca” cylindrica, Watsonella crossbyi and undetermined hyoliths (Anse à la Gazelle), characteristic of the Cambrian Age 2; (ii) the sandstone and quartzite-dominated Random Formation, about 130 m thick (Anse and Cap à Ross); (iii) the Brigus Formation, 15 m thick and exclusively recognized at the Cap Percé islet, comprises a centimetre-thick polymictic lag capped by a heterolithic and variegated succession of shales, sandstones and centimetre-thick limestone interbeds; (iv) the Chamberlain’s Brook Formation, 50 m thick and dominated by green shales and subsidiary reddish and blackish shales and centimetre-thick limestone nodules (Anse aux Soldats); and (v) the Manuels River Formation, more than 80 m thick and composed of homogeneous black shales bearing centimetre- to metre-scale limestone nodules and concretions infested with trilobites (Anse aux Soldats). The lowermost nodules of the latter formation have yielded a trilobite assemblage dominated by Ptychagnostus atavus and subsidiary Bailiaspis cf. howelli, Clarella gronwalli, Eodiscus punctatus, Hypagnostus parvifrons, Peronopsis fallax, Phalacroma scanicum, Pleuroctenium granulatum and Ptychagnostus ciceroides, representative of the Paradoxides davidis Zone (included in the late Drumian Ptychagnostus punctuosus Zone), whereas the uppermost nodules contain scattered olenid sclerites (Protopeltura sp.) of Furongian age. The base and top of the Brigus Formation are represented by erosive unconformities linked to gaps broadly related to a part of Cambrian Epoch 2 and the Cambrian Epoch 2-lower Drumian. Both gaps are correlatable throughout New Brunswick and the marginal platform of the southern Burin Peninsula.Peer reviewe

Cambrian–early Ordovician volcanism across the South Armorican and Occitan domains of the Variscan Belt in France: Continental break-up and rifting of the northern Gondwana margin

International audienceThe Cambrian–lower Ordovician volcanic units of the South Armorican and Occitan domains are analysed in a tectonostratigraphic survey of the French Variscan Belt. The South Armorican lavas consist of continental tholeiites in middle Cambrian–Furongian sequences related to continental break-up. A significant volcanic activity occurred in the Tremadocian, dominated by crustal melted rhyolitic lavas and initial rifting tholeiites. The Occitan lavas are distributed into five volcanic phases: (1) basal Cambrian rhyolites, (2) upper lower Cambrian Mg-rich tholeiites close to N-MORBs but crustal contaminated, (3) upper lower–middle Cambrian continental tholeiites, (4) Tremadocian rhyolites, and (5) upper lower Ordovician initial rift tholeiites. A rifting event linked to asthenosphere upwelling took place in the late early Cambrian but did not evolve. It renewed in the Tremadocian with abundant crustal melting due to underplating of mixed asthenospheric and lithospheric magmas. This main tectono-magmatic continental rift is termed the “Tremadocian Tectonic Belt” underlined by a chain of rhyolitic volcanoes from Occitan and South Armorican domains to Central Iberia. It evolved with the setting of syn-rift coarse siliciclastic deposits overlain by post-rift deep water shales in a suite of sedimentary basins that forecasted the South Armorican–Medio-European Ocean as a part of the Palaeotethys Ocean

U–Pb laser ablation ICP-MS zircon dating across the Ediacaran–Cambrian transition of the Montagne Noire, southern France

International audienceU–Pb laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry was used for dating zircon grains extracted from four sedimentary and volcano sedimentary rocks of the Montagne Noire encompassing the presumed Ediacaran–Cambrian boundary interval. Magmatic zircon from two samples from the basal and middle parts of the Rivernous Formation (a rhyolitic tuff) were deposited at 542.5 ± 1 Ma and 537.1 ± 2.5 Ma, bracketing the 541 Ma age presently admitted as being at the Ediacaran–Cambrian boundary. In addition, a piece of sandstone from the underlying Rivernous Formation containing mostly euhedral zircon grains, suggesting proximal magmatic sources, yields Neoproterozoic dates ranging from 574 Ma to 1 Ga, and subsidiary older dates from 1.25 to 2.75 Ga. Another piece of sandstone from the overlying Marcory Formation yielded mostly rounded zircon grains probably issued from more remote areas, with a large spectrum dominated by Neoproterozoic dates as well as older ages up to 3.2 Ga. A comparison of both kinds of sandstone suggests a significant change in provenance, changing from a restricted source area during the Ediacaran to a much larger source domain during the Cambrian Epoch 2 that recorded contributions from different cratons of Gondwana

The Ordovician from France and neighbouring areas of Belgium and Germany

Abstract The Ordovician successions of France and neighbouring areas of Belgium and Germany are reviewed and correlated based on international chronostratigraphic and regional biostratigraphic charts. The same three megasequences related to the rift, drift and docking of Avalonia with Baltica can be tracked in Belgium and neighbouring areas (Brabant Massif and Ardenne inliers), western (Rhenish Massif) and northeastern Germany (Rügen). The remaining investigated areas were part of Gondwana in the Ordovician. The Armorican Massif shares with the Iberian Peninsula a Furongian–Early Ordovician gap (Toledanian or Norman gap), and a continuous Mid–Late Ordovician shelf sedimentation. The Occitan Domain (Montagne Noire and Mouthoumet massifs), eastern Pyrenees and northwestern Corsica share with southwestern Sardinia continuous shelf sedimentation in the Early Ordovician, and a Mid Ordovician ‘Sardic gap’. In the Ordovician, the Maures Massif probably belonged to the same Sardo-Occitan domain. The Vosges and Schwarzwald massifs display comparable, poorly preserved Ordovician successions, suggesting affinities with the Teplá-Barrandian and/or Moldanubian zones of Central Europe