Early Berriasian Ammonites from the Štramberk Lime Stone in the Kotouč
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Annales Societatis Geologorum Poloniae (2013), vol. 83: 329–342. EARLY BERRIASIAN AMMONITES FROM THE ŠTRAMBERK LIMESTONE IN THE KOTOUÈ QUARRY (OUTER WESTERN CARPATHIANS, CZECH REPUB LIC) Zdenìk VAŠÍÈEK1 & Petr SKUPIEN2 1 In stitute of Geonics, Acad emy of Sciences of the Czech Repub lic, Studentská 1768, 708 00 Ostrava-Poruba, Czech Re pub lic; e-mail: [email protected] 2 In sti tute of Geo log i cal En gi neer ing, VŠB-Tech ni cal Uni ver sity, 17. listopadu 15, 708 33 Ostrava-Poruba, Czech Re public; e-mail [email protected] Vašíèek, Z. & Skupien, P., 2013. Early Berriasian ammonites from the Štramberk Limestone in the Kotouè Quarry (Outer West ern Carpathians, Czech Re pub lic). Annales Societatis Geologorum Poloniae, 83: 329–342. Ab stract: Over 100 ammonites were col lected from a block of bed ded shal low-wa ter Štramberk Lime stone at a new lo ca tion at the Kotouè Quarry, near Štramberk (Silesian Unit, Czech Re pub lic). Berriaselline neocomitids, in clud ing Berriasella jacobi, B. oppeli, Tirnovella allobrogensis, T. cf. allobrogensis, Delphinella consanguinea, Pseudosubplanites cf. grandis and Malbosiceras cf. asper, are the most abundant spe cies in this ammonite as so ci a tion. The olcostephanitid, Spiticeras blancheti, is rare. The index spe cies for the Early Berriasian, B. jacobi, oc curs in large num bers. On the ba sis of the pres ent study, the up per bound ary of the stratigraphic range of the Štramberk Limestone in the type area is dated as early Berriasian (ammonite Berriasella jacobi Zone). Ammonites with ages youn ger than early Berriasian have never been found in the Štramberk area. The de po si tion of the Štramberk Lime stone in the Štramberk area came to an end dur ing that pe riod. Key words: Ammonites, Berriasian, Štramberk area, Outer Western Carpathians. Manu script re ceived 7 November 2013, ac cepted 27 December 2013 IN TRO DUC TION The fos sil-rich Štramberk Lime stone (pos si bly pri mar ily Štramberk Limestone forming Cas tle Hill was ac cessed at Tithonian to early Berriasian in age) in the Outer West ern the Cas tle Hill Quarry at a strati graphic level, which cor re - Carpathians of Moravia (Czech Re public) has at tracted the sponded to the upper part of the lower Tithonian (Houša, atten tion of palaeontologists since the first half of the nine- 1975, 1990). The ammonite spe cies from this quarry exhib - teenth cen tury. The first author to mention limestones in this its a uni form lower Tithonian charac ter, docu menting this area was Oyenhausen (1822). The term Štramberk Limestone strati graphic in ter val. Ma te rial in the Hohenegger col lec tion for the light-grey to whit ish-grey limestones was intro duced came from other sites, as well. A small por tion of this col - by Hohenegger (1849). From approx i mately 1910 on wards, lection was re cov ered from the Mu nic ipal Quarry (Obecní the quarry at Kotouè Hill has been the main source of mate - lom, Gemeinde Steinbruch) at Štramberk, which was still rial for palaeontological stud ies. A review of geolog i cal and rather small in size at the time (opened in 1820). Part of Ho- palaeontological papers, ad dress ing the Štramberk Lime- henegger’s mate rial was also ob tained from sites, compris - stone and as so ci ated deeper-wa ter Lower Cre ta ceous de pos - ing the so-called “ex otic boulders” of Štramberk Limestone, its from Štramberk and the surround ing area, was presented and taken from differ ent local ities in the Podbeskydská pa- by Vašíèek and Skupien (2004, 2005). horkatina Highland. These sites con tain ing “ex otic boul- On the basis of the Štramberk Limestone, the Tithonian ders” and the Munic i pal Quarry at Štramberk yielded spe - Stage was defined (see Oppel, 1865; von Zittel, 1870) as the cies that led to doubts among later authors over the unifor - up permost unit of the Juras sic in the Tethyan Realm. Both mity of the Štramberk Limestone ammonite fauna. of these classic works were based on ma terial from the Ho- The youn ger Remeš collec tion from the Štramberk Li- henegger collec tion, which was col lected almost exclusi- mestone shows a somewhat differ ent faunal spectrum, com - vely from the type area in the Cas tle Hill (Zámecký vrch) pared to the older col lec tions. This differ ence is ex plained Quarry (Schlossberg Steinbruch), where mining started in by the fact that the Remeš col lection was ob tained later, be - 1780. There fore, this quarry was se lected as the type area of tween 1870 (when it was ini ti ated by Remeš’s father) and the Štramberk Limestone (Houša, 1968). The body of the about 1930, and thus contains samples from quarries that 330 Z. VAŠÍÈEK & P. SKUPIEN Fig. 1. Tectonic map of the Outer Western Carpathian area in the Czech Re pub lic were ac tive at that time, as well as pur chases from quarry work ers. The Castle Hill Quarry had been almost com- pletely abandoned in the end of 19th century, and the main sources of Štramberk Limestone were the quarry on Kotouè Hill and the Munic i pal Quarry (Remeš, 1899, 1904). How- ever, the newly opened quarry on Kotouè Hill was the main Fig. 2. Lo ca tion map. A. Top o graphic sit u a tion of bod ies of source of fos sils. Here, the Štramberk Limestone was ex ten - Štramberk Lime stone in the vicin ity of Štramberk. B. Lo ca tion of sively exposed and extracted during the 1900s, throughout the sec tion (marked with an aster isk) on the tran si tion be tween nearly its en tire stratigraphic range be tween the early Titho- lev els 4 (IV) and 3 (III) at Kotouè Quarry nian and early Berriasian. An early Tithonian age is docu - mented by an ammonite as sem blage (e.g., Blaschke, 1911) from the former Gutmann Quarry, opened in the old est, stone. It thus al lows re defi ni tion of the up per stratigraphic southwesterly portion of the Homole body of the Kotouè limit of this clas sic unit in its type area as lower Berriasian, Hill com plex in 1881. even though most of other (old) collec tions indi cate a Titho- During a visit to the Uni versity of Tübingen, within the nian age. framework of the Humboldt Fel lowships in Feb ru ary 1992, one of us (Z. V.) vis ited the Bayerische Staatssammlung für Paläontologie und historische Geologie (Univer sity of Mu - GEO LOG I CAL SET TING nich). A clas sic col lection of ammonites from the Štramberk Limestone, monographed by von Zittel (1868), is housed The Štramberk Limestone in its clas sic form oc curs at there. At the time, the Ger man col leagues, H. Immel and G. several quarries (the Kotouè, Munic i pal, Horní skalka and Schairer, had plas ter casts made of ten orig inal spec imens Cas tle Hill quar ries) in the imme di ate vi cin ity of the town of from von Zittel’s col lec tion, rep re sent ing rather small shells. Štramberk (Figs 1, 2) in the form of larger and smaller car- Some of these casts have now been of assis tance in our iden- bon ate blocks, smaller blocks, breccias and con glom erates. ti fi ca tion. The Štramberk Limestone also occurs also within the Creta - New discov er ies of ammonite fauna in a block of Štram- ceous flysch de posits of the Silesian Unit in the Outer West- berk Limestone with conspic uous bedding, from the Kotouè ern Carpathians. Quarry near Štramberk, form the sub ject of the present pa per. The ge ology of the Štramberk area and the nature of the This study provides a system atic as sess ment of the ammoni- megablocks are the subject of contro versy. Houša (1990) tes and their stratigraphic inter preta tion. The ammonite fauna interpreted the carbon ate blocks as tectonic klippen, sep a- is in dic a tive of the lower Berriasian Beriasella jacobi Zone rated from the carbon ate plat form during the course of Sile- and is the youn gest, so far reported from the Štramberk Lime- sian Nappe overthrust. In his inter preta tion, the asso ci ated BERRIASIAN AMMONITES FROM THE ŠTRAMBERK LIME STONE 331 deeper-wa ter Early Cre ta ceous de pos its rep re sent ma te rial which filled fissures or cavi ties of differ ent or igin or cover orig i nal sur faces of lime stone bod ies. According to Eliáš (see Eliáš and Stráník, 1963; Eliáš, 1970; Eliáš and Eliášová, 1986), the limestones are em bed- ded in base-of-slope con glom erates and slump bod ies within the Cre taceous part of the Tìšín–Hradištì Formation (now Hradištì Forma tion – see Eliáš et al., 2003), consti tut ing an ex treme de vel op ment of the Chlebovice Con glom er ate. This ac cu mu la tion de vel oped be tween the Tithonian and the Turonian (see also Vašíèek and Skupien, 2004; Svobodová et al., 2011). Ac cord ing to Picha et al. (2006), the Štramberk carbon - ate platform, rimmed by coral reefs, was the source of clas- tics and large frag ments. Grav i ta tional slides and turbidite currents transported both small and large blocks and frag- ments from the rim (edge) of the platform, as far out as the foot of the adja cent basin.