The Ordovician of France and neighbouring areas of Belgium and Germany
The Ordovician of France and neighbouring areas of Belgium and Germany (in A global synthesis of the Ordovician system; part 1, David Alexander Taylor Harper (editor), Bertrand Lefebvre (editor), I. G. Percival (editor) and T. Servais (editor))
Special Publication - Geological Society of London (November 2022) 532: 375-408
- Armorican Massif
- Avalonia
- Baltica
- Belgium
- biostratigraphy
- Brabant Massif
- Central Europe
- chronostratigraphy
- continental shelf
- Europe
- France
- Germany
- Gondwana
- inliers
- nesosilicates
- Ordovician
- orthosilicates
- Paleozoic
- silicates
- stratigraphic units
- succession
- tectonostratigraphic units
- U/Pb
- Western Europe
- zircon
- zircon group
- detrital zircon
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 (Ruegen). 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 Tepla-Barrandian and/or Moldanubian zones of Central Europe.
