A Lower Cretaceous drowning unconformity on the eastern flank of the Apulia Platform (Gargano Promontory, southern Italy)

A well defined onlap geometry, interpreted as a drowning unconformity, occurs on the eastern flank of the Apulia Platform (Gargano Promontory, southern Italy): pelagic carbonates (Maiolica) of Valanginian-Hauterivian age onlap the flank of the Portlandian-Berriasian platform. This documentation fills a gap in current knowledge on the stratigraphy of Early Cretaceous carbonate platforms. The drowning event correlates well with other similar and coeval drowning unconformities described from the Atlantic and Ligurian oceanic continental margins (Scotian Shelf, Baltimore Canyon, Caribbean, Portugal, Morocco, southern Spain, southern France, Swiss Alps). Considering that these unconformities developed over a large area of the globe, some kind of eustasy (glacio-eustatic, geoidal eustasy) is suggested as being the dominant operating mechanism. (C) 1997 Academic Press Limited.