Alpine limestone

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The alpine limestone is a science-historical collective term for various limestones of the Alpine region . The Alpine Limestone was one of the four recorded formations in the Limestone Alps in the first half of the 19th century . As one of four formations it essentially comprised the rocks from the Triassic and Jurassic periods .

Demarcation

Besides the alpine limestone formation there was the salt deposits that as of today Haselgebirge lineup Alpine correct, then the group of red shale and sandstone , which today about the Permoskythium complex match and the fourth formation the Gosau - or flysch -Formation .

history

After an initial phase of geological research in the Limestone Alps at the end of the 18th century, for example by Mathias von Flurl or Leopold von Buch , the methodology was refined in the first half of the 19th century and research was organized more systematically, including the establishment of the kk Geological Reichsanstalt in Vienna in 1849. Open questions at that time were the relative position of the formations in the Limestone Alps and their comparability with formations outside the Alps. This is how the German geologist Christian Keferstein imagined the Alpine limestone still in the hanging wall of the Gosau formation. But since the age of the largely Cretaceous Gosau Formation was already known at that time, he classified the Alpine Limestone as a formation of the hard chalk also in the Chalk. Karl Lill von Lilienbach recorded the sequence correctly for the first time in 1830. He also distinguished a lower group of Alpine limestone from an upper group of Alpine limestone . For a long time, however, the timing of the Alpine limestone remained unclear. Between 1829 and 1847 it was mostly assumed that the Alpine limestone represented the Lias and the Jura . In 1848 Adolph von Morlot classified the deepest section of the Alpine limestone in the Triassic. In fact, Franz von Hauer had already carried out this classification two years earlier by means of paleontological investigations, and in 1824 Ami Boué had already equated the German shell limestone with the alpine limestone in terms of age, which was not recognized by the experts at the time. Due to ever finer lithological and age-related distinctions, the umbrella term alpine limestone became increasingly unusable, but it could still be used in geological literature until around 1860.

literature

  • Alexander Tollmann: Analysis of the classical North Alpine Mesozoic. Stratigraphy, fauna and facies of the Northern Limestone Alps , Part II of the Monograph of the Northern Limestone Alps. Verlag Deuticke, Vienna 1976. ISBN 3-7005-4412-X . Page 1–9.

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