Correlation of the Kimmeridgian-Tithonian (Jurassic) boundary beds exposed in the Boulonnais,France with those at Kimmeridge,Dorset, UK

Sediments of Kimmeridgian and Tithonian age are well exposed on the Boulonnais coast of northern France between Equihen and Cap Gris Nez and on the south coast of England at and adjacent to Kimmeridge Bay. Both successions were deposited on a marine shelf and lie within the Subboreal faunal province which enables detailed correlations to be made between them based on ammonite assemblages. They are, however, lithologically markedly different due to their environmental settings: close to a land area in the case of the Boulonnais and within a depositional basin in the case of Kimmeridge. The succession adjacent to the Kimmeridgian-Tithonian boundary exposed in the Boulonnais is highly condensed and laterally variable with more attenuated successions occurring close to the former Anglo-Brabant Massif land area. The boundary occurs at the end of a succession of up to six regressive-transgressive events that onlap the land area. This is in contrast to that at outcrop at Kimmeridge, where the Kimmeridgian-Tithonian boundary is marked by a correlative conformity in an unbroken basinal succession. The cliff and foreshore exposures in the Kimmeridge area provide the only unbroken succession in the Subboreal faunal province of the beds adjacent to the Kimmeridgian-Tithonian boundary.