Downloaded from http://jgs.lyellcollection.org/ at University of Bristol Library on April 27, 2021 Research article Journal of the Geological Society https://doi.org/10.1144/jgs2020-158 | Vol. 178 | 2021 | jgs2020-158 Testing the relationship between marine transgression and evolving island palaeogeography using 3D GIS: an example from the Late Triassic of SW England Jack Lovegrove1, Andrew J. Newell2, David I. Whiteside1,3 and Michael J. Benton1* 1 School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TQ, UK 2 British Geological Survey, Maclean Building, Crowmarsh Gifford, Wallingford OX10 8BB, UK 3 The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK DIW, 0000-0003-1619-747X; MJB, 0000-0002-4323-1824 * Correspondence: [email protected] Abstract: The Rhaetian transgression marked a major change in landscape. The Permian and Triassic had been a time of terrestrial conditions across Europe, including much of mainland UK, as well as the North Sea and Irish Sea, represented by red bed clastic successions. Seas flooded across Europe at 205.7 Ma and the shift from terrestrial to marine environments is marked in the UK by the switch from the red beds of the Mercia Mudstone Group to the black mudstones and shelly limestones and sandstones of the Penarth Group. The area around Bristol was marked by a complex landscape in which an archipelago of islands of Carboniferous limestone was formed in the new shallow seas. The application of new methods in geographical information systems allows a detailed exploration of a number of conformable surfaces, the unconformity between the underlying Paleozoic rocks and the overlying Mesozoic strata, as well as levels within the latest Triassic sediments, marking the advance of the sea and interactions with the coeval tectonics, which caused some islands to rise and some basins to descend. The new geographical information system models show a sequence of palaeogeographical reconstructions of the archipelago and relate this to the island tetrapod faunas, which show strong evidence of the species–area effect. Supplementary material: Supplementary tables S1-S6 and 2D island map GIS files are available at https://doi.org/10.6084/ m9.figshare.c.5273256 Received 20 August 2020; revised 24 December 2020; accepted 16 January 2021 The transition from the Triassic to the Jurassic was a time of major slender crocodyliforms. The age of the fissures has been debated, global environmental change, with evidence for massive volcanism, with suggestions that they are either Carnian or Norian, and so accelerated rates of extinction, high-magnitude changes in sea-level predate the Rhaetian transgression (Robinson 1957), or Rhaetian and and extraterrestrial impacts. The overarching event was the break-up so more or less coeval with the transgression (Whiteside et al. 2016). of the Pangaean supercontinent and the onset of eruptions from the Key questions concern the impact of the Rhaetian transgression and Central Atlantic Magmatic Province, which drove a rapid fall and evolving palaeogeography on the fauna and flora. For example, it is subsequent rise in sea-level, resulting in a sustained marine understood from studies of modern organisms on islands that species transgression across much of western Europe, transforming Permo- numbers match island size, and that some groups may show dwarfing Triassic continental environments into epicontinental seas. The Late as a means of survival in small spaces. Moreover, the age and origin Triassic and Early Jurassic stratigraphy of SW Britain has played a of the palaeokarstic systems in which many of the fossils were globally significant part in unravelling the sequence of events around preserved have been the subject of much debate. this Rhaetian transgression and is the focus of this paper. Our aim here is to test whether we can use GIS methods to Although most previous work has focused on well-exposed produce a 3D model of a focused area in the British Isles, consisting outcrop sections, here we take a broader approach using of multiple stratigraphic marker horizons reconstructed as surfaces. geographical information system (GIS) models and 3D visualiza- We then explore how the tectonics preceding the Triassic, as well as tion. We analyse a large amount of published and unpublished data contemporary Earth movements through the Late Triassic and on stratigraphic thicknesses from boreholes, quarries, railway and Jurassic, affected the nature of the Carboniferous–Mesozoic road cuttings, and natural exposures across the Bristol–Bath– unconformity as well as basin-deepening and island-swamping by Mendips area in an attempt to gain new insights into the impact of the rising sea-levels of the latest Triassic. We explore whether these the Rhaetian transgression on the palaeogeography and palaeobio- new methods enable us to produce a more accurate map of the geography of SW England. archipelago (cf. the maps in Fig. 1), date the karst fissures on the A key aspect of the palaeogeography of this area is the Bristol– islands and estimate their sizes, and relate these geographical Severn palaeoarchipelago (Whiteside et al. 2016). This was an array features to contemporary island life. of structural highs in the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic, formed largely from Carboniferous limestone, the area and connectivity of which must have changed throughout the Rhaetian transgression Geological setting of the Bristol–Mendip Massif (Fig. 1). These palaeoislands are noted for their populations of small tetrapods, including some of the first dinosaurs and mammals, as Paleozoic basement well as lizard-like sphenodontians, gliding kuehneosaurids, broad- The study area is triangular and is bounded by the Bristol Channel to toothed procolophonids and trilophosaurids (Robinson 1957), and the west, the Mendip Hills to the south and the Cotswolds © 2021 The Author(s). Published by The Geological Society of London. All rights reserved. For permissions: http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/permissions. Publishing disclaimer: www.geolsoc.org.uk/pub_ethics Downloaded from http://jgs.lyellcollection.org/ at University of Bristol Library on April 27, 2021 2 Lovegrove et al. Fig. 1. Comparison between old and new maps of the Bristol archipelago. (a) Robinson (1957),(b) Whiteside et al. (2016),(c) Whiteside and Marshall (2008), and (d) our new map. Note that the map of Robinson (1957) represents Paleozoic rock outcrops and the fissure localities only because this author did not envisage a palaeoarchipelago at the time of sauropsid fissure filling. escarpment to the east (Fig. 2). In this area, the Jurassic and younger and Early to Late Triassic, when the adjacent Wessex Basin and rocks that make up the Cotswolds and regions to the east have been Worcester Graben formed major depocentres. Adjacent to the deeply eroded to reveal underlying folded and faulted Paleozoic steeply dipping fold limbs of Carboniferous limestone, the MMG is ‘basement’ rocks of Devonian and Carboniferous age. Older rocks represented by coarse scree and alluvial fan deposits of the are exposed in some areas, such as the Silurian sediments of the ‘Dolomitic Conglomerate’, now termed the MMG (marginal Tortworth inlier (Reed and Reynolds 1908). facies), which infills gullies developed on the flanks of the fold Areas of high elevation in the district are largely Carboniferous structures and dramatically highlights the exhumed Late Triassic limestone, except for the Devonian sandstones and Silurian igneous palaeotopography that is still present today. These parts of the rocks exposed in the core of the large periclines that make up the MMG are mainly assigned to the Branscombe Mudstone Formation. Mendip Hills (Fig. 2). These Paleozoic rocks were deformed by The upper part of the MMG, the Blue Anchor Formation (BAF), compression during the Variscan Orogeny in the Late overlies the Branscombe Mudstone Formation and is identified by a Carboniferous (Williams and Chapman 1986). The Carboniferous change from red beds to mudstones and fine-grained, green–grey limestones form a series of curved ridges that represent the often sandstones. The BAF contains marine trace fossils and bivalves and steeply dipping limbs of major fold structures, including the west– it records the initial Late Triassic marine transgression in SW Britain east-trending periclines of the Mendip Hills and the north–south- (Mayall 1981). Landon et al. (2017) recorded echinoid and trending Coalpit Heath Syncline between Bristol and Cromhall, ophiuroid echinoderms as well as cephalopod arm hooks in the which has a core of Carboniferous Coal Measures. BAF at Stoke Gifford, Bristol, confirming the marine conditions. The BAF is 20–40 m thick in the Central Somerset Basin, but thins – rapidly towards the Mendips and locally includes altered evaporite Stratigraphy of the Late Triassic Early Jurassic cover deposits (Green 1992). Traditionally, the Norian–Rhaetian bound- The Carboniferous and older basement rocks have a partial, ary was placed between the uppermost part of the BAF (the Williton unconformable cover of essentially flat-lying or gently dipping Member of Mayall (1981) is generally considered Rhaetian) and the Late Triassic and Early Jurassic strata of the Mercia Mudstone and Penarth Group, but uncertainties over palynological dating and Penarth groups, and the overlying Lias (Fig. 2). These units formed some local diachroneity mean that the Branscombe Mudstone prior to and during the Rhaetian transgression and show an Formation and BAF are dated as ‘Norian to