The Barremian carbonate platform strata of the Montenegro Dinarids near Podgorica: a cyclostratigraphic study

High resolution sedimentological analysis of two Lower Cretaceous carbonate platform successions that crop out near Podgorica (southern Dinarides, Montenegro) has resulted in local lithostratigraphic and cyclostratigraphic correlation and the creation of a composite section, about 80 m thick, that includes the Hauterivian/Barremian boundary and almost the whole of the Barremian Stage. The strata studied have been interpreted in terms of depositional environments, recognizing in them a hierarchic cyclic pattern of depositional and early diagenetic features. This cyclic organization is closely comparable to that recorded in other Cretaceous shallow-water successions of the southern Apennines, where the elementary cycles may be grouped in bundles that are in turn grouped into superbundles. This hierarchy has been interpreted to reflect control by climatic oscillations, modulated by the Earthʹs orbital perturbations. The elementary cycles are related to the precession signal (ca. 20 ky), while the bundles and the superbundles are linked to short (ca. 100 ky) and long eccentricity (ca. 400 ky) respectively. Moreover, these cycles appear to be superimposed on lower frequency Transgressive/Regressive Facies Trends (T/R Facies Trends). Based on superbundles, an orbital chronostratigraphic diagram has been assembled that gives an estimate for the duration of the succession analysed of ca. 4 my.