Giuseppe Cassinis

A General Outline of the Permian Continental Basins in Southwestern Europe

In Italy, France and Spain the Permian system essentially consists of continental terrigenous and volcanic deposits. Intrusive bodies are also widespread in some places (the South Alpine area, French Central Massif, Pyrenees, Sardinian-Corsican Massif, etc.). Marine sediments crop out in a few Italian areas (eastern South Alpine region, central-southern sectors of the peninsula and Sicily), where they represent the most westerly branches of the old Tethys.

Remarks on the Permian-Triassic transition in Central and Eastern Lombardy (Southern Alps, Italy)

The main lithological and petrographical characteristics of the Permian-Lower Triassic Orobic and Brescian successions in central and eastern Lombardy are briefl y recorded, especially with regard to the units cropping out below and above the P-T boundary. The lower formation is represented by the Verrucano Lombardo, which consists of continental, fluvial red clastics, barren of fossils, generally Late Permian (Lopingian) in age, whereas the overlying Servino Formation, which is represented by well-bedded clastic and carbonate polychrome sediments, generally rich in fossils, pertains to the Early Triassic (Induan-Olenekian). The sequences of the two above-mentioned areas differ at least in part, as proof of their regional division, probably because of an inherited paleotopography and syntectonic activity. Taking into account the units bracketing the P-T boundary, which represents the real topic of this work, the Verrucano Lombardo of the Orobic Alps is paraconformably covered by the conglomerates and sandstones of the Prato Solaro Member in the lower part of the Servino Formation, cropping out extensively, although discontinuously, from the eastern side of Lake Como to the upper Scalve Valley in the Camonica region. The shape of some quartz rock fragments, derived from the Variscan crystalline basement and its Upper Carboniferous siliciclastic cover, has been interpreted as due to relatively coeval aeolian activity, and testifi es to an arid climatic “event” probably late Dienerian-early Smithian in age. In contrast, in the Brescia province, the onset of the Servino is made up of wave and current rippled, fi ne clastics, 1-2 m thick, and a typical horizon of oolitic dolostones (“Praso Limestone” Auct.), continuous from the lower Camonica Valley to the western Trentino. This unit could laterally correlate towards east, in the eastern South-Alpine segment, with the famous oolitic Tesero Member at the base of the Werfen Formation of the Dolomitic and Carnic Alps. In the Brescian Prealps, the above oolitic deposits crop out below some Claraia beds yielding forms common to those present in the Siusi Member of the Dolomites, generally attributed to late Griesbachian-early Dienerian times. Their age could be ascribed to a slightly older Griesbachian, i.e. to early Induan. Therefore, the P-T boundary in central and eastern Lombardy seems substantially located between the fi nal part of the Permian and the very base of the respective Triassic successions, temporally and spatially ranging in different ways and generally affected by non-depositional and perhaps tectonic processes. In our opinion, however, the duration of the gap, based on correlations with the well-documented stratigraphical studies recently carried out in the nearby Dolomitic area and other European regions, should be considered as slightly longer than previously recognized: the maximum gap could be estimated at about 3-4 Ma. As a consequence, we thus point out that the Servino Formation of the Brescian Alps rests, itself, paraconformably on the Verrucano Lombardo red beds, even if the P-T gap was probably less for correlation with the well-known Dolomites sections. At the end of the paper, for a more comprehensible understanding of the late- to post-Variscan geological scenario, is a tentative synthesis of the regional evolution.