Tubular tempestites from Jurassic mudstones of southern Poland

Abstract

This paper presents tubular tempestites from southern Poland and their application for environmental and sequence stratigraphy interpretation. Tubular tempestites are present in muddy successions of the Lower Jurassic Ciechocinek Formation and in the Middle Jurassic Częstochowa Ore-Bearing Clay Formation in the Silesian-Kraków region. They occur as sand-filled tubes of Spongeliomorpha and Thalassinoides entrenched in the mudstone, which form two characteristic horizons. Tubes were emplaced in semi-consolidated substrate and filled with sand brought by storm-generated bottom currents. The trace fossils reveal features typical of Glossifungites ichnofacies associated firmgrounds, which record discontinuities in the stratigraphical record, linked with a depositional hiatus or condensation and erosion of the sea-floor. The coincidence of these horizons with early phases of regional transgressions suggests that they represent transgressive surfaces of erosion. Their limited spatial extent probably resulted from varying intensity of erosion, which locally scoured deeply down to already consolidated substrate, whereas in other places erosion was weaker or even absent, and thus it is not marked in the sedimentary record there.