The connection between iron ore formations and 'mud-shrimp' colonizations around sunken wood debris and hydrothermal sediments in a Lower Cretaceous continental rift basin, Mecsek Mts., Hungary

• Published in: Earth-Science Reviews
• Main Authors: Jáger, Viktor, Molnár, Ferenc, Buchs, David, Kodera, Peter
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: unknown
• Published: Elsevier 2012
• Subjects: North Atlantic
• Online Access: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/44559/; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.earscirev.2012.06.003

In the Early Cretaceous, the continental rift basin of the Mecsek Mts. (Hungary), was situated on the southern edge of the European plate. The opening of the North Atlantic Ocean created a dilatational regime that expanded to the southern edge of the European plate, where several extensional basins and submarine volcanoes were formed during the Early Cretaceous epoch. Permanent seaquake activity caused high swell events during which a large amount of terrestrial wood fragments entered into submarine canyons from rivers or suspended woods which had sunk into the deep seafloor. These fragments created extended wood-fall deposits which contributed large-scale flourishing of numerous burrowing thalassinid crustaceans. Twelve different thalassinid coprolite ichnospecies can be found in the Berriasian–Hauterivian volcano-sedimentary formations.