Quick Search:    advanced search

GSW Home   GeoRef Home   My GSW Alerts   Contact GSW   About GSW   Journals List   Help

This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Cozzi, A. Articles by Hardie, L. A. Search for Related Content GeoRef GeoRef Citation

Orbitally forced Lofer cycles in the Dachstein Limestone of the Julian Alps (northeastern Italy)

¹ Institute of Geology, Department of Earth Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich, Sonneggstrasse 5, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland
² Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA

Lofer cyclothems of the Upper Triassic Dachstein Limestone of the Julian Alps (northeastern Italy) are the focus of a new sedimentological-cyclostratigraphic study. A 112-cycle-long field section reveals that the meter-scale basic cycle shallows upward, from subtidal megalodont-bearing subfacies to intertidal laminites, capped by a paleosol subfacies. Time-series analysis of a correlative grayscale scan of a high-resolution field photograph shows that a 166-m-thick succession of Lofer cycles has time-frequency characteristics consistent with Earth's precession index, suggesting that the Lofer cycles were generated by eustatic sea-level oscillations that were forced by Milankovitch cycles.

Key Words: Lofer cyclothem • Milankovitch theory • Dachstein Limestone • Julian Alps • Late Triassic