Description:    The poorly known larger benthic foraminifer Balkhania balkhanica Mamontova is reported from the Tirgan Formation (Upper Barremian-Lower Aptian) in the northeastern part of Iran. It was so far only known from Iran (Kopet Dagh and Central Iran), Turkmenistan, and central Afghanistan. Obviously, B. balkhanica possessed a limited distributional area overlapping largely with that of the dasycladalean alga Kopetdagaria sphaerica Maslov (Turkmenistan, Iran, Georgia, Bulgaria, Romania), Conradella bakalovae (Conrad and Peybernès) (Tibet?, Georgia, Bulgaria, Romania), and other taxa. These taxa typify the so-called Carpatho-Pontic algal bioprovince sensu Bucur ( 2000 ), which is emended and replaced with the new name Carpatho-Cimmerian bioprovince being part of the former northern (= Eurasian) margin of the Neo-Tethys. The present case study provides a further example that the investigation of the distribution pattern of larger benthic foraminifera, together with dasycladalean green algae, may provide a useful proxy in paleotectonic and paleogeographic reconstructions of the Peri-Tethyan domain. Content Type Journal Article Category Original Article Pages 1-19 DOI 10.1007/s10347-012-0323-3 Authors Morteza Taherpour Khalil Abad, Department of Geology, North Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran Felix Schlagintweit, Lerchenauerstr. 167, 80935 Munich, Germany Seyed Hamid Vaziri, Department of Geology, North Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran Ali Asghar Aryaei, Department of Geology, Mashhad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Mashhad, Iran Ali Reza Ashouri, Department of Geology, Mashhad Branch, Islamic Azad University, Mashhad, Iran Journal Facies Online ISSN 1612-4820 Print ISSN 0172-9179

Description:    Iranella inopinata gen. and sp. nov. was first described in the unpublished thesis of Gollestaneh ( 1965 ), as an incertae sedis from the Lower Cretaceous carbonate rocks of the Zagros fold-thrust belt. More recently, the taxon was formally, although provisionally described by Hosseini and Conrad (Geol Croat 61:215–237, 2008 ), as a dasycladalean alga named Salpingoporella ? inopinata . Here, based on the interpretation of quite-abundant although scattered fragments, it is assigned to Iranella , a large-sized, stalked, and capitulum-shaped new genus of Dasycladales. The lower, stalked part of the thallus is cylindrical, strongly calcified, with first-order laterals only, while the large capitulum is only partly calcified, showing one or two orders of laterals. Traces of cysts (reproductive organs) are present in the basal stalk, either in the stipe or the laterals. Iranella inopinata looks to be endemic to the southwestern part of the Tethyan realm, in the Zagros area and also south of the Persian Gulf. In the Zagros Mts., it extends from the Berriasian to the Aptian, with an Acme Zone in the Valanginian. Sequential interpretation proves the presence of this species in the late transgressive and early highstand stages of system tracts, and reveals a low-energy, restricted, lagoonal or back-reef depositional environment, in an inner-platform setting. Content Type Journal Article Category Original Article Pages 1-15 DOI 10.1007/s10347-012-0324-2 Authors Seyedabolfazl Hosseini, Département de Géologie et Paléontologie, Faculté des sciences, Université de Genève, 13 rue des Maraichers, 1205 Genève, Switzerland Marc André Conrad, 71 chemin de Planta, 1223 Cologny, Genève, Switzerland Pascal Kindler, Département de Géologie et Paléontologie, Faculté des sciences, Université de Genève, 13 rue des Maraichers, 1205 Genève, Switzerland Journal Facies Online ISSN 1612-4820 Print ISSN 0172-9179

Description:    This study focuses on sclerobionts from a large collection of epibenthic echinoids (〉2,000 specimens) of the genera Conulus and Camerogalerus . Samples were collected from five localities in southern Poland (Polish Jura and Miechów Trough), where Turonian carbonates with terrigenous input are exposed. Low intensity (mean ca. 5 %, maximum ca. 10 %) and slight encrustation (“loosening effect”) exclusively by episkeletozoans probably resulted from low productivity of encrusters while the importance of other factors cannot be excluded unambiguously. Echinoids served as a main substratum and after death formed shellgrounds (‘echinoid carpet’) offering abundant benthic islands for encrusters in an otherwise soft-bottom environment. The moderate abundance but low-diversity assemblage is represented by bivalves, sedentary polychaetes, foraminifera, bryozoans, corals, and sponges. This assemblage is similar to a nearly contemporaneous assemblage from the Bohemian Basin. The presence of numerous spirorbins offers insights into their early evolution and may indicate that their first peak in abundance after origination was not prior to the earliest Turonian. This is regarded as one of the important ecological steps towards the rise of modern sclerobiont communities. Encruster diversities are independent of their abundance and, as shown in our novel planar projections, lateral parts of tests were preferentially encrusted. This pattern is explained by the combination of largest flat area and stable orientation. Encrusting bivalves and serpulids dominated hard substrate environments in the Turonian of Poland. Content Type Journal Article Category Original Article Pages 1-20 DOI 10.1007/s10347-012-0319-z Authors Tomasz Borszcz, Institute of Oceanology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Powstańców Warszawy 55, 81-712 Sopot, Poland Piotr Kuklinski, Institute of Oceanology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Powstańców Warszawy 55, 81-712 Sopot, Poland Michał Zatoń, Faculty of Earth Sciences, University of Silesia, Będzińska 60, Sosnowiec, 41-200 Poland Journal Facies Online ISSN 1612-4820 Print ISSN 0172-9179

Description:    Carbonate sedimentation concurrent with submarine volcanism is very rare in the geologic record but is well displayed in the Early to Middle Miocene Conejo Volcanics of the central Santa Monica Mountains of southern California. Limestone occurs as lenticular deposits on the surface of composite flows units, as matrix within breccia of pebble- to cobble-size volcanic clasts, within primary voids extending down from flow surfaces, as lenses between flows within composite flow units, and as neptunian dikes. The common depositional sequence is of limestone lying on a flow and being overlain by hyaloclastic breccia. Limestone is not deposited on hyaloclastic breccia. Limestone deposition was controlled locally by relief on the sea floor that formed as the volcanic rocks accumulated. The limestone is predominantly skeletal packstone; volcanic clasts ranging in size from silt to boulders are locally common. Major constituent fossils are shallow-water bivalve mollusks, barnacles, serpulids, and regular echinoids; most are epifaunal and hard-substrate taxa in contrast to the soft-substrate and burrowing infaunal biota otherwise dominant in Cenozoic strata along the Pacific Coast of North America. The biota is diagnostic of a non-tropical, warm temperate environment. The limestone was deposited within a local basin that formed along the plate boundary at the western margin of the North American Plate. While volcanic rocks accumulated in the basin at bathyal depth, carbonate sediment accumulated on the outer-shelf margin of the basin and was transported intermittently into the basin by gravity flow. Neogene limestone occurs at only a few other sites in southern California. These have an origin that is similar to those in the Conejo Volcanics but differ in occurring with basin fill of diatomaceous sedimentary rocks rather than of submarine volcanics. Content Type Journal Article Category Original Article Pages 1-14 DOI 10.1007/s10347-012-0320-6 Authors Robert J. Stanton Jr., Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 900 Exposition Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90007, USA John M. Alderson, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, 900 Exposition Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90007, USA Journal Facies Online ISSN 1612-4820 Print ISSN 0172-9179

Description:    The most extensive latest Cretaceous deposits of the Pyrenees are non-marine facies traditionally called “Garumnian”, which represent the first continentalization of the Pyrenean Foreland Basins. The age and paleogeography of the basal Garumnian facies in the different parts of the Pyrenean Basin has been a matter of debate. Charophyte biostratigraphy and microfacies analysis suggest that the continentalization was diachronous in the Central Southern Pyrenean basins, i.e., between the Àger and Tremp basins, and the emersion progressed from south to north. In the Àger Basin, to the south, the first Upper Cretaceous non-marine rocks are represented by the La Maçana Formation. This unit is mainly formed by freshwater lacustrine limestones organized into hundreds of shallowing-upwards sequences ranging from deeper lacustrine facies, through marginal, well-illuminated environments dominated by characean meadows, and finishing with lakeshores dominated by clavatoracean meadows. The charophyte assemblage from the La Maçana Fm is mainly formed by Peckichara cancellata, P. sertulata, Microchara cristata, M. parazensis, Platychara caudata, and Clavator brachycerus , which belong to the Peckichara cancellata charophyte biozone (Late Campanian). In contrast, in the Tremp Basin, located to the north, the beginning of the non-marine sedimentation is organized into a few cycles of the well-known La Posa Fm. These cycles begin with brackish deposits formed by thick marls with euryhaline molluscs at the base, followed by lignite and brackish to freshwater limestones. The brackish facies are dominated by porocharaceans. The charophyte assemblage of the La Posa Formation is formed by Feistiella malladae, Peckichara sertulata, Microchara cristata, and Clavator brachycerus , which belong to the Septorella ultima charophyte biozone (Early Maastrichtian). Content Type Journal Article Category Original Article Pages 1-27 DOI 10.1007/s10347-012-0317-1 Authors S. Villalba-Breva, Departament d’Estratigrafia, Paleontologia i Geociències Marines, Facultat de Geologia, Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain C. Martín-Closas, Departament d’Estratigrafia, Paleontologia i Geociències Marines, Facultat de Geologia, Universitat de Barcelona, 08028 Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain Journal Facies Online ISSN 1612-4820 Print ISSN 0172-9179

Description:    The Cretaceous (Early Aptian, uppermost Bedoulian, Dufrenoyia furcata Zone) Zamaia Formation is a carbonate unit, up to 224 m thick and 1.5 km wide, which formed on a regional coastal sea bordering the continental Iberian craton. A high-resolution, facies-based, stratigraphic framework is presented using facies mapping and vertical-log characterization. The depositional succession consists of a shallow estuarine facies of the Ereza Fm overlain by shallow-water rudist limestones (Zamaia Fm) building relief over positive tectonic blocks and separated by an intraplatform depression. The margins of these shallow-water rudist buildups record low-angle transitional slopes toward the adjacent surrounding basins. Syn-depositional faulting is responsible for differential subsidence and creation of highs and lows, and local emplacement of limestone olistoliths and slope breccias. Two main carbonate phases are separated by an intervening siliciclastic-carbonate estuarine episode. The platform carbonates are composed of repetitive swallowing-upward cycles, commonly ending with a paleokarstic surface. Depositional systems tracts within sequences are recognized on the basis of facies patterns and are interpreted in terms of variations of relative sea level. Both Zamaia carbonate platform phases were terminated by a relative sea-level fall and karstification, immediately followed by a relative sea-level rise. This study refines our understanding of the paleogeography and sea-level history in the Early Cretaceous Aptian of the Basque-Cantabrian Basin. The detailed information on biostratigraphy and lithostratigraphy provides a foundation for regional to global correlations. Content Type Journal Article Category Original Article Pages 1-30 DOI 10.1007/s10347-012-0315-3 Authors Pedro Angel Fernández-Mendiola, Dpto. Estratigrafía y Paleontología, Universidad del País Vasco, Apdo 644, 48080 Bilbao, Spain Jone Mendicoa, Dpto. Estratigrafía y Paleontología, Universidad del País Vasco, Apdo 644, 48080 Bilbao, Spain Sergio Hernandez, Dpto. Estratigrafía y Paleontología, Universidad del País Vasco, Apdo 644, 48080 Bilbao, Spain Hugh G. Owen, Department of Earth Sciences, The Natural History Museum, London, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD UK Joaquín García-Mondéjar, Dpto. Estratigrafía y Paleontología, Universidad del País Vasco, Apdo 644, 48080 Bilbao, Spain Journal Facies Online ISSN 1612-4820 Print ISSN 0172-9179

Description:    In the Argolis, the Basal Sequence, constituting the eastern Pelagonian margin which bordered the Maliac-Vardar oceanic domain, includes shallow-water carbonates of Late Triassic-Early Jurassic, condensed pelagic limestones of Early-Middle Jurassic, radiolarian cherts of late Middle-Late Jurassic age and siliceous mudstones and sandstones rich in ophiolite fragments. Up-section, coarse breccias, including clasts of boninites derived from the ophiolite obducted onto the Pelagonian margin in Late Jurassic times crop out. Near Angelokastron a small quarry exposes pervasively sheared dark reddish-brown, radiolarian-bearing cherty shales with disrupted fragments of chert and chert nodules impregnated by ferro-manganese oxides. These shales occur in the footwall of a thrust bringing them into contact with the Pantokrator Limestone of the Basal Sequence. We collected more than 30 samples of the chert fragments and the shaly matrix. Thirteen nodules and one matrix sample yielded determinable radiolarians. Low to non-detectable concentrations of trace metals such as Co, Cr, Cu, Ni, Zn, and Pb indicate a hydrothermal origin of the ferro-manganese mineralization. The radiolarian taxa found indicate four age groups for the nodules that are embedded in the siliceous shale matrix that yielded a Middle Jurassic age (middle Bathonian). The first group includes a nodule of Late Triassic age (late Norian to Rhaetian); the second group nodules of Early Jurassic age (late early to late Pliensbachian and probably middle-late Toarcian); the third group nodules of early Middle Jurassic age (Aalenian–Bajocian); the last group finally includes nodules of late Middle Jurassic age (Bajocian–Bathonian). The presence of Upper Triassic to Middle Jurassic Mn-impregnated chert nodules in a Middle Jurassic matrix indicates a deep oceanic environment of deposition outside the Pelagonian realm (easternmost Adria Plate), which at that time was a shallow-water carbonate platform with a thin pelagic limestone cover. The chert nodules are with all certainty derived from the oceanic Maliac-Vardar domain and were, together with their host formation, tectonically emplaced onto the Pelagonian margin. We speculate that these nodules, more lithified than their matrix, were exhumed on the slope of an intra-oceanic accretionary wedge and were redeposited in the Middle Jurassic siliceous mudstones on the floor of the subducting Maliac-Vardar Ocean. Content Type Journal Article Category Original Article Pages 1-34 DOI 10.1007/s10347-012-0314-4 Authors Marco Chiari, C.N.R.- Istituto di Geoscienze e Georisorse, via G. La Pira 4, 50121 Florence, Italy Peter O. Baumgartner, Institut de Géologie et Paléontologie, Université de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland Daniel Bernoulli, Geologisches Institut, Universität Basel, Bernoullistrasse 32, 4056 Basel, Switzerland Valerio Bortolotti, Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, via G. La Pira 4, 50121 Florence, Italy Marta Marcucci, Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, via G. La Pira 4, 50121 Florence, Italy Adonis Photiades, Institute of Geology and Mineral Exploration (IGME), 13677 Acharnae, Greece Gianfranco Principi, Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, via G. La Pira 4, 50121 Florence, Italy Journal Facies Online ISSN 1612-4820 Print ISSN 0172-9179

Description:    Previously unreported dasycladaleans and one morpho-taxon of assumed algal origin are described from Upper Turonian to Santonian rocks of the Lower Gosau Subgroup (LGS) of the Northern Calcareous Alps. A taxonomic inventory of green-algal/benthic foraminiferal assemblages shows that assemblages of “pure” carbonate environments are more diverse than those of siliciclastic and mixed siliciclastic-carbonate settings. A comparison of the taxonomic inventory of the LGS with assemblages in similar sedimentary successions of the Alpine-Mediterranean realm shows the highest similarity with the “Mirdita Zone” of the internal Dinarids. Comparability of assemblages, however, is limited due to narrow chronostratigraphic overlap and/or because of scarcity of data from areas outside the Alps. Although higher than previously known, the total diversity of the green-algal/benthic foraminiferal assemblage of the LGS is clearly inferior to that of the peri-Adriatic carbonate platforms. Content Type Journal Article Category Original Article Pages 1-20 DOI 10.1007/s10347-012-0316-2 Authors Felix Schlagintweit, Lerchenauerstr. 167, 80935 Munich, Germany Diethard Sanders, Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, University of Innsbruck, Innrain 52, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria Martin Studeny, Institute of Palaeontology, Geozentrum University of Vienna, Althanstr. 14, 1090 Vienna, Austria Journal Facies Online ISSN 1612-4820 Print ISSN 0172-9179

Description: Erratum to: Early Ordovician reefs in South China (Chenjiahe section, Hubei Province): deciphering the early evolution of skeletal-dominated reefs Content Type Journal Article Category Erratum Pages 1-1 DOI 10.1007/s10347-012-0318-0 Authors Natsuko Adachi, School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, Haidian, Beijing, 100871 People’s Republic of China Jianbo Liu, School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, Haidian, Beijing, 100871 People’s Republic of China Yoichi Ezaki, Department of Geosciences, Osaka City University, Sugimoto, Sumiyoshi-ku, Osaka, 558-8585 Japan Journal Facies Online ISSN 1612-4820 Print ISSN 0172-9179

Description:    Integrated analyses of ferruginous laminated crusts and macro-oncoids associated with Middle Jurassic (Bathonian-Callovian) hardgrounds and condensed horizons cropping out in the Bucegi Mountains (Southern Carpathians) allowed an assessment of their microbial origin and the paleoenvironmental context of their genesis. The ferruginous microstromatolites reveal different morphological types (or macrofabrics): ferruginous microstromatolites representing the hardgrounds crusts, ferruginous endostromatolites and oncoidal ferruginous microstromatolites. The last are associated with ooidal bioclastic grainstone, ooidal bioclastic grainstone-packstone, bioclastic ooidal packstone-grainstone, oncoidal floatstone and rudstone, stromatolitic bindstone, bioclastic wackestone-packstone and bioclastic wackestone microfacies. The host mineral of the ferruginous microbialites is calcite, but microbially induced iron oxyhydroxides (goethite and magnetite) prevail in the ferruginous laminae. Petrographical and scanning electron microscope (SEM) investigations revealed that these ferruginous microstromatolites were formed by the activity of microbial mats dominated by putative bacterial and fungal filaments. Locations with reduced or no sedimentation, in relatively deep-water, open-marine shelf environments, below fair-weather wave base or near to storm wave base, within the deep euphotic zone, were favorable for the hardening of the seafloor and the development of the microbial mats. The scarcity of an autochthonous benthic fauna and of burrowing, as well as the presence of framboidal pyrite suggest dysaerobic conditions. In such an environment, iron would have been in its soluble state (Fe 2+ ) and the activity of micro-aerophylic iron-oxidizing bacteria appears to have been particularly intensive at the dysoxic-anoxic interface, inducing the precipitation of iron oxyhydroxides and the formation of diverse ferruginous microstromatolites. Content Type Journal Article Category Original Paper Pages 1-32 DOI 10.1007/s10347-012-0313-5 Authors Iuliana Lazăr, Department of Geology, Faculty of Geology and Geophysics, University of Bucharest, 1 N. Bălcescu Bd, 010041 Bucharest, Romania Mihaela Grădinaru, Department of Geology, Faculty of Geology and Geophysics, University of Bucharest, 1 N. Bălcescu Bd, 010041 Bucharest, Romania Lucian Petrescu, Department of Mineralogy, Faculty of Geology and Geophysics, University of Bucharest, 1 N. Bălcescu Bd, 010041 Bucharest, Romania Journal Facies Online ISSN 1612-4820 Print ISSN 0172-9179