Arndt Peterhaensel

Tracs International Ltd

The Triassic Latemar platform in the Dolomites, Italy, is the site of several ongoing controversies. Perhaps the most interesting debate focuses on apparent cyclic deposition within the Latemar platform, whose nature and duration are still open to debate. Further disagreement concerns the lack of meteoric diagenesis-related isotope shifts at cycle...

ABSTRACT Sedimentary cycles recorded in young sediments are often attributed to fluctuations of the Earth's climate on a 104−106-year scale which in turn is governed by periodic variations in solar insolation linked to orbital (Milankovitch) parameters. A spectacular example of cyclic stratal patterns in ancient deposits is the Middle Triassic Late...

The Palliser Formation of western Canada constitutes a giant, tropical carbonate platform of Famennian age. Although now mostly composed of peloids, aggregates, intraclasts, and cortoids, a major proportion of these micritic particles originally consisted of bioclasts, primarily crinoidal, that were obliterated by bioerosion. Analogous to modern tr...

The 720-m-thick succession of the Middle Triassic Latemàr Massif (Dolomites, Italy) was used to reconstruct the lagoonal facies architecture of a small atoll-like carbonate platform. Facies analysis of the lagoonal sediments yields a bathymetric interpretation of the lateral facies variations, which reflect a syndepositional palaeorelief. Based on...

Establishing multiple constraints for the duration of short-term geological processes by independent methods is rarely achieved but highly desirable, as illustrated by the spectacular example of the supposedly orbitally governed succession of the Middle Triassic (ca. 240 Ma) Latemar carbonate platform (W Dolomites, N Italy). Based on spectral analy...

Carbonate platforms dominated by great thicknesses of ostensibly uniform, thick bedded, poorly fossiliferous and burrow-mottled, subtidal limestones are found throughout the Phanerozoic, yet are poorly understood. Deposited in the aftermath of the FrasnianFamennian extinction event, the Palliser/Wabamun Formation with a thickness of up to 600 m and...