Origin, age and stratigraphic significance of distal fallout ash tuffs from the Carboniferous–Permian continental Saar–Nahe Basin (SW Germany)

Thin, widespread, fallout tuff layers interbedded within fluvio-lacustrine successions of the Carboniferous-Permian Saar-Nahe Basin provide important tephrostratigraphic markers. In addition, radiogeochronometric data derived from the tuffs serve as calibration points for the adjustment to regional chronostratigraphy and to numerical time scales. The Pappelberg-Tuff in the Meisenheim Formation (Glan Group) has been dated by U/Pb zircon SHRIMP technique at 297.0Dž.2 Ma. Taking the Carboniferous/Permian boundary at 296 Ma, the Meisenheim Formation coincides approximately with this boundary. Consequently, underlying strata, lithostratigraphically regarded as the basal part of the 'Rotliegend', chronostratigraphically belong to the Upper Carboniferous. Bed thicknesses, grain size and sorting characteristics of the tuffs and the absence of contemporaneously emplaced volcanics within the Saar-Nahe Basin point to an extrabasinal derivation of the wind-drifted volcanic ash. Decreasing grain sizes of juvenile pyroclastic particles towards the north suggest source areas south of the basin within 300 km distance. The majority of the tuffs are rhyolitic to rhyodacitic and indicate petrographic and geochemical affinities to Moldanubian S-type granitoids, in particular to highly differentiated two-mica granites, and related volcanic effusives. Within the time frame considered here, such potential source rocks were emplaced in the northern and central Black Forest (SW Germany) and the northern Vosges (E France) at 100-150 km distance south of the Saar-Nahe Basin.