Synsedimentary tectonics, mud-mounds and sea-level changes on a Palaeozoic carbonate platform margin: a Devonian Montagne Noire example (France)

The Devonian sedimentary succession of the southern flank of the Montagne Noire (France) was deposited along a divergent margin. This paper is a contribution to describe and evaluate biogenic, sedimentary,,geochemical and micropalaeontological features as indicators of sea-level changes and global history of the Devonian in this area. Following transgression and shallow-water environments during Early Devonian time (Lochkovian to early Emsian), biogenic mud-rich mounds with stromatactis developed during latest Emsian at the platform margin. The depth of the Devonian sea was increasing and the seafloor passed below the photic zone and the lower limit of storm wave base during the Emsian. Growth and seismic faults affected the mounds and created Neptunian cracks and crevices, quickly filled with sedimentary material (pisoids) and cements (Neptunian dykes and veins). Light and CL-microscopy, and stable isotope geochemistry show that stromatactis, cements of Neptunian dykes, veins and pisoid cortices are early marine, whereas the red finely crystalline material that forms the bulk of the mound has been cemented in the near-surface diagenetic environment, after the early marine cementation of stromatactis and Neptunian dykes and veins, by meteoric or hydrothermal fluids. The sedimentary rocks overlying the stromatactis mounds exhibit regularly condensed iron and manganese-rich layers, interrupted by the Kellwasser hypoxic horizon. These condensed deposits developed up to the Famennian in a context of carbonate gravity sedimentation and became more and more rhythmic and frequent up section. The occurrence and irregular distribution of large-scale submarine mass flows during Frasnian and Famennian times can be related to block faulting on which Lower Devonian stromatactis mounds could have been uplifted by this block faulting to form seamounts. The sea-level fluctuations detected in the southern flank of Montagne Noire are compared to the Devonian eustatic sea-level curve of Johnson et al. (1985). [Johnson, J,G., Klapper, G., Sanberg, C.A., 1985, Devonian eustatic fluctuations in Euramerica. Geol. Sec. Am. Bull. 96, 567-587.] (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.