Potential Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary tsunami deposit in the intra-Tethyan Adriatic carbonate platform section of Hvar (Croatia)
- Author(s)
- Tvrtko Korbar, Alessandro Montanari, Vlasta Premec-Fucek, Ladislav Fucek, Rodolfo Coccioni, Iain McDonald, Philippe Claeys, Toni Schulz, Christian Koeberl
- Abstract
An exceptional 47-m-thick succession of Maastrichtian to Paleocene inner-platform carbonates is exposed on the Dalmatian island of Hvar (Adriatic Sea, Croatia) in a seaside locality called Majerovica. The middle part of this succession is an ~5-m-thick intraformational massive deposit, which is underlain by well-bedded peritidal innerplatform limestones containing latest Maastrichtian rudists and shallow-water benthic foraminifera. This deposit includes a polygenic, matrix-supported carbonate breccia characterized by ripped-up platform limestone lithoclasts, up to boulder sized, and polygenic microbreccia in a muddy matrix. The microbreccia contains rare small intraclasts of pelagic mudstone containing terminal Maastrichtian planktonic foraminifera. The deposit is overlain in turn by mudstone containing a planktonic foraminiferal association belonging to the P0 and Pa zones of the basal Paleogene, and by shallow-water muddy limestones containing planktonic foraminifera belonging to the P1 zone. While facies suggest that the deposit was emplaced over the inner platform by a single large tsunami, the biostratigraphic assessment of this section and the presence of enhanced concentrations of platinum group elements, such as iridium, in the topmost part of the massive deposit lend support to the hypothesis that this tsunamite is related to the Chicxulub impact in Yucatán. This is potentially the first case of a tropical carbonate platform sedimentary succession recording the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary event, which provides a new constraint for modeling both the western Tethyan paleogeography and the catastrophic aftermaths of the Chicxulub impactat the end of the Mesozoic Era.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of Lithospheric Research
- External organisation(s)
- Università degli Studi di Urbino "Carlo Bo", Cardiff University, Croatian Geological Survey, Osservatorio Geologico di Coldigioco, INA-Industrija Nafte d.d., Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Naturhistorisches Museum Wien (NHM)
- Journal
- Geological Society of America. Bulletin
- Volume
- 127
- Pages
- 1666-1680
- No. of pages
- 15
- ISSN
- 0016-7606
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1130/B31084.1
- Publication date
- 11-2015
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 105105 Geochemistry
- Keywords
- ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Geology
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/potential-cretaceouspaleogene-boundary-tsunami-deposit-in-the-intratethyan-adriatic-carbonate-platform-section-of-hvar-croatia(fd6912aa-e546-462b-94cb-3fb4bb0fa191).html