Paleogeographic patterns of the Cambrian-Ordovician transition in the southern Montagne Noire (France) : preliminary results

Abstract

Abstract The Cambrian-Ordovician transition in the southern Montagne Noire records a major siliciclastic regressive trend of prograding shoaling complexes (the La Dentelle Formation), separating two transgressive storm-dominated sedimentary systems of mixed (carbonate-siliciclastic) deposits. The latter comprise the underlying La Gardie and Val d’Homs Formations, and the overlying Mounio Formation, all of them displaying evidence of an important synsedimentary tectonic activity. Isolated settings of carbonate productivity, located on intra-shelf ramps and horsts, contain the richest and diversified faunistic communities comprising trilobites, echinoderms, conodonts, carbonate- and phosphate-shell brachiopods, sponge spicules, etc. Although the Cambrian-Ordovician transition of the southern Montagne Noire did not record volcanic events but a rather distensive regime inducing paleotopographies, the latter may reflect a distinct extensional regime recorded in other earliest Ordovician platforms of the French Massif Central, involving oceanization and a major magmatic activity.