Early and Middle Jurassic tectonically controlled deposition in the High-Tatric succession (Tatricum), Tatra Mountains, southern Poland: a review

Abstract

The High-Tatric succession of the Tatra Mountains represents the Tatricum domain of the Central Western Carpathians, which in the Jurassic was located on the southern margin of the incipient and expanding Vahic Ocean – a branch of Western Tethys. This  paper describes the various depositional consequences of extensional tectonic activity as it impacted on sedimentation in the High-Tatric succession of the Tatra Mountains during the Early and Middle Jurassic. Evidence of such impacts on depositional style and facies development are present within the Dudziniec, Smolegowa and Krupianka formations, in all the High-Tatric tectonic units. These impacts also include erosional surfaces and sedimentary gaps separating particular formations, commonly associated with minor angular unconformities. The Lower Jurassic, pre-Bajocian, Dudziniec Formation of the Kominy Tylkowe (autochthonous) Unit is developed in mixed carbonate-clastic facies. The occurrence and proportion of sand-dominated and carbonate-dominated facies, as well as their thickness differences, were controlled by syndepositional tilt-block tectonics, taking place both in depositional and in neighbouring source areas. The Smolegowa and Krupianka formations (Bajocian–Bathonian) occur in all High-Tatric tectonic units, but in the Czerwone Wierchy and Giewont units they are represented mainly by laterally discontinuous bodies of crinoidal limestone of very limited thickness. The preservation of these deposits only in some areas, as well as their thickness reductions, are effects of differentiated subsidence and uplift of isolated blocks taking place in an extensional regime. Moreover, the Krupianka Formation abounds in condensed facies with ferruginous crusts and stromatolites – a feature characteristic of rapidly drowning ocean margins. Deposits of the Dudziniec, Smolegowa and Krupianka formations are also preserved as infills of extensive systems of neptunian dykes penetrating mainly the Triassic substrate, which is yet another classic symptom of synsedimentary extension. The dominant influence of tectonics on sedimentary development ceased with the onset of deposition of the Raptawicka Turnia Formation in the Callovian.