Anatomy of an Upper Triassic continental to marginal-marine system: the mixed siliciclastic-carbonate Travenanzes Formation (Dolomites, northern Italy)

The Travenanzes Formation is a terrestrial to shallow-marine, siliciclastic–carbonate succession (200 m thick) that was deposited in the eastern Southern Alps during the Late Triassic. Sedimentary environments and depositional architecture have been reconstructed in the Dolomites, along a 60 km south– north transect. Facies alternations in the field suggest nterfingering between alluvial-plain, flood-basin and shallow-lagoon deposits, with a transition from terrestrial to marine facies belts from south to north. The terrestrial portion of the Travenanzes Formation consists of a dryland river system, characterized by multicoloured floodplain mudstones with scattered conglomeratic fluvial channels, merging downslope into small ephemeral streams and sheet-flood sandstones, and losing their entire discharge subaerially before the shoreline. Calcic and vertic palaeosols indicate an arid/semi-arid climate with strong seasonality and intermittent discharge. The terrestrial/marine transition shows a coastal mudflat, the flood basin, which is usually exposed, but at times is inundated by both major river floods and sea-water storm surges. Locally coastal sabkha deposits occur. The marine portion of the Travenanzes Formation comprises carbonate tidal-flat and shallow-lagoon deposits, characterized by metre-scale shallowing-upward peritidal cycles and subordinate intercalations of dark clays from the continent. The depositional architecture of the Travenanzes Formation suggests an overall transgressive pattern organized in three carbonate–siliciclastic cycles, corresponding to transgressive–regressive sequences with internal higher-frequency sedimentary cycles. The metre-scale sedimentary cyclicity of the Travenanzes Formation continues without a break in sedimentation into the overlying Dolomia Principale. The onset of the Dolomia Principale epicontinental platform is marked by the exhaustion of continental sediment supply.