• Source: Wetterstein Formation

The Wetterstein Formation is a regional geologic formation of the Northern Limestone Alps and Western Carpathians extending from southern Bavaria, Germany in the west, through northern Austria to northern Hungary and western Slovakia in the east. The formation dates back to the Ladinian to Carnian stages of the Late Triassic. The formation is named after the Wetterstein Mountains in southern Germany and northwestern Austria. The center of its distribution, however, is in the Karwendel Mountains. It occurs in the Northern and Southern Limestone Alps and in the Western Carpathians.
The formation is composed of mostly reefal limestones and dolomites, the latter the result of widespread diagenesis. In many areas there is a frequent alternation of limestone and dolomite facies. Local variants to indicate the Wetterstein Formation include German: Wettersteinkalk (Wetterstein Limestone), Wettersteindolomit ("Wetterstein Dolomite") and combinations thereof. The Wetterstein Formation reaches a maximum thickness of 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) with major regional thickness variations. It belongs to the tectonostratigraphical unit Austroalpine nappes. The carbonate rock of the formation is from the Middle Triassic epoch of the Ladinian stage, comparable to the German stage in which Muschelkalk rock strata were formed.
The formation has provided numerous fossils of corals, sponges, bivalves, gastropods and other marine groups indicative of a shallow marine carbonate platform environment deposited at the northern end of the Tethys Ocean.




Naming



The Wetterstein Formation is named after the Wetterstein Mountains in southern Germany and northwestern Austria.
Alternative names for the whole formation or parts of it in stratigraphical (vertical) or facies (lateral) sense are:

Wetterstein Limestone (Wettersteinkalk)
Wettersteinkalk Formation
Wettersteindolomit - used in Semmering and Kalkkögel, Austria
Wetterstein Limestone Formation
Wetterstein kalk/dolomit - used in the Northern Limestone Alps of Austria
Wetterstein reef limestone Formation

The Swiss stratigraphical lexicon uses Wetterstein Formation as "informal, but used name" with the following historical variants:

Wettersteinkalk (von Guembel 1861, Fraas 1910)
Wettersteinkalk = Ladinische Stufe (Cornelius 1935)
Wetterstein = Wettersteindolomit = Wettersteinkomplex (Stöcklin 1949) (Fellerer 1964, Kraus 1964)
Calcaire de Wetterstein [sic] = Calcaire du Wetterstein = Formation de Wetterstein [sic] (Hirsch 1966)
Wettersteindolomit, Wetterstein-Dolomit




= Subunits

=
Its subunits include:

Messerstich Limestone
Schlern Dolomite
Marmolata Limestone
Steinalm Formation
Ramsau Dolomite Formation




Description



The Wetterstein Formation, with a total thickness of up to 1,000 metres (3,300 ft), is a major regional stratigraphic unit of the Northern Limestone Alps and Western Carpathians in Central Europe, spanning across four countries from southwestern Bavaria to northwestern Slovakia.




= Extent

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The formation crops out to the north of the Hohe Tauern window and is part of the Austroalpine nappes.




= Stratigraphy

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In the Semmering area of Austria, where the name Wettersteindolomit is used, the formation is unconformably overlain by the Kapellener Shale and overlies the Reifling Formation, in the Kalkkögel and Radstadt Tauern the dolomite overlies the Partnach Formation and is overlain by the Raibl Formation, while in Tyrol the formation, called Wettersteinkalk/dolomit unconformably overlies the Gutenstein and Steinalm Formations and unconformably underlies the Reingraben Formation.
In the Aggtelek-Rudabánya mountains of Hungary, the formation, called Wetterstein Limestone Formation overlies the Reifling and Steinalm Formations and is overlain by the Szádvárborsa Formation.




= Regional correlations

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In Austria the Wetterstein Dolomite correlates with the Alberg Formation of the Linz Dolomites, the Wetterstein kalk/dolomite with the lower part of the Hallstatt Formation of the Northern Limestone Alps and with the Schlern Dolomite, or Schlern Formation, in the Southern Limestone Alps.
In Hungary, the formation is time-equivalent with the Berva Formation of the Bükk, the Bódvavölgyi Ophiolite, Szentjánoshegy and Derenk Formations of the Aggtelek-Rudabánya range and the Csanádapáca Formation of the Békés Zone. In the Dinarides, the formation is time-equivalent with the Grivska Formation of Bosnia. The Kopaonik Formation in its eponymous mountain range in Serbia is considered a distal, more deep water equivalent of the Wetterstein platform sediments.




= Diagenesis

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Dolomitization of the Wetterstein Carbonate Platform is a widespread phenomenon, especially in the Tirolic units of the Northern Calcareous Alps. At the Clessinsperre, the type locality for the underlying Steinalm Formation, intense dolomitization has altered the microfacies characteristics of the Wetterstein Carbonate platform – typical are fore-reef carbonates, later reefal and back-reefal carbonates topped by lagoonal carbonates, making the original features hardly visible.




Fossil content


Because, during dolomitisation, traces of fossils are largely lost as a result of recrystallisation, fossils in the Wetterstein dolomite are harder to distinguish, and even in thin sections may be barely recognizable. Wetterstein dolomite is rarely as bituminous as typical Main Dolomite and therefore tends to be much more pure and brighter-coloured. Otherwise, there are no fundamental differences with the Wetterstein limestone.
Among others, the following fossils have been described from the Wetterstein Formation:




See also


Geology of the Alps
Schrattenkalk Formation
Hauptdolomit Formation
List of types of limestone
Triassic System of Europe
Ansbachersandstein, contemporaneous ichnofossiliferous formation of Bavaria
Benkersandstein, contemporaneous ichnofossiliferous formation of Bavaria
Chañares Formation, fossiliferous formation of the Ischigualasto-Villa Unión Basin, Argentina
Candelária Formation, contemporaneous fossiliferous formation of the Paraná Basin, Brazil
Molteno Formation, contemporaneous fossiliferous formation of Lesotho and South Africa
Pebbly Arkose Formation, contemporaneous fossiliferous formation of Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe
Denmark Hill Insect Bed, contemporaneous fossiliferous unit of Queensland, Australia
Madygen Formation, contemporaneous Lagerstätte of Kyrgyzstan




References






= Bibliography

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Császár, Géza (1997), Basic Lithostratigraphic units of Hungary - Charts and short descriptions (PDF), Stratigraphic Commission of Hungary, pp. 1–114, retrieved 2018-08-16
Erhard, Christian; Spötl, Christoph (2010), "Karst geology and cave fauna of Austria: A concise review", International Journal of Speleology, 39 (2): 71–90, doi:10.5038/1827-806X.39.2.3, retrieved 2018-08-16
Feuerstein, Mario Jakob (2013), Gastropoden-Fossillagerstätte in der Wetterstein Formation des Drauzuges (Gailtaler Alpen / Kärnten) (BSc. thesis) (PDF), Universität Innsbruck, pp. 1–40, retrieved 2018-08-16
Gawlick, Hans-Jürgen; Missoni, Sigrid; Schlagintweit, Felix; Lein, Richard (2013), Field Trip A3: Triassic to Early Cretaceous shallow-water carbonates in the central Northern Calcareous Alps (Northwestern Tethyan realm), 11th Workshop on Alpine Geological Studies & 7th IFAA, pp. 178–190, retrieved 2018-08-16
Henrich, Ruediger (1986), Diagenesis of Upper Triassic Wetterstein Reefs of the Bavarian Alps in Reef Diagenesis, Springer Berlin, pp. 245–268, retrieved 2018-08-16
Lein, Richard; Krystyn, Leopold; Richoz, Sylvain; Lieberman, Henry (2012), "Middle Triassic platform/basin transition along the Alpine passive continental margin facing the Tethys Ocean - The Gamsstein: The rise and fall of a Wetterstein Limestone Platform (Styria, Austria)", Journal of Alpine Geology, 54: 471–498, retrieved 2018-08-16
Piller, W.E.; Erhart, C.W. (2004), Stratigraphische Tabelle von Österreich (PDF), ASC, p. 1, retrieved 2018-08-16
Schefer, Senecio; Egli, Daniel; Missoni, Sigrid; Bernouilli, Daniel; Fügenschuh, Bernhard; Gawlick, Hans-Jürgen; Jovanović, Divna; Krystyn, Leopold; Lein and Stefan M. Schmidt, Milan N. Sudar, Richard (2010), "Triassic metasediments in the internal Dinarides (Kopaonik area, southern Serbia): stratigraphy, paleogeographic and tectonic significance" (PDF), Geologica Carpathica, 61 (2): 89–109, Bibcode:2010GCarp..61...89S, doi:10.2478/v10096-010-0003-6, retrieved 2018-08-16
Siblik, Milos (1994), "The Brachiopod Fauna of the Wetterstein Limestone of the Raxalpe (Austria)" (PDF), Jahrbuch der Geologischen Bundesanhalt, 137: 365–381, retrieved 2018-08-16
Vörös, A.; Piros, O.; Budai, T.; Haas, J.; Lobitzer, H. (2007), Cephalopod coquina beds in the Wetterstein Limestone (Anisian, Höllengebirge, Salzkammergut, Austria) (PDF), OEPG, p. 1, retrieved 2018-08-16
Wessely, Godfrid; Ćorić, Stjepan; Rögl, Fred; Zorn, Irene (2007), "Stratigraphy of the Thermal Water Area (Baden - Bad Vöslau) at the Western Border of the Southern Vienna Basin" (PDF), Scripta Fac. Sci. Nat. Univ. Masaryk. Brun., 36: 39–44, retrieved 2018-08-16
Zeeh, S.; Bechstädt, T.; McKenzie, J.; Richter, D.K. (1995), "Diagenetic evolution of the Carnian Wetterstein platforms of the Eastern Alps", Sedimentology, 42 (2): 199–222, Bibcode:1995Sedim..42..199Z, doi:10.1111/j.1365-3091.1995.tb02099.x, retrieved 2018-08-16




Further reading


McCann, Tom (2008), The Geology of Central Europe: Mesozoic and Cenozoic, vol. 2, Geological Society, pp. 1–736, ISBN 978-1-86239-265-6




External links


World map at the time of the Early/Lower Triassic
Cephalopod coquina beds in the Wetterstein Limestone

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• Wetterstein Formation
• King's House on Schachen
• Partnach Formation
• Travenanzes Formation
• Ramsau Dolomite
• Lunz Formation
• List of stratigraphic units in Austria
• Main Dolomite
• List of fossiliferous stratigraphic units in Germany
• Bukobay Svita