Stratigraphy and natural resources of the latest Permian to Early Triassic sedimentary succession in Germany

In Central Europe, the marine to hypersaline Zechstein Group (latest Permian) and the overlying mainly continental Buntsandstein Group (latest Permian to earliest Middle Triassic) were deposited in the intracontinental Central European Basin (CEB), which is also known as the Southern Permian Basin or Germanic Basin, respectively. The WNW-ESE-trending CEB extends from England to southeast Poland and from the southern North Sea to southern Germany (Ziegler 1990). The southern margin of the CEB was differentiated into a complex system of NNE-trending highs and lows. In the Late Permian, these structures controlled the development of marginal carbonate and anhydrite platforms of the lower Zechstein. Overall, tectonics played only a minor role during Zechstein deposition. Deposition of the overlying Buntsandstein sedimentary succession, however, was affected by several tectonic pulses. Their effects are recorded by regional unconformities, such as the prominent Hardegsen Unconformity (latest Early Triassic). In Late Permian to early Triassic times, the CEB was located at a latitude of 15° to 20°N in the eastern part of the supercontinent Pangea. The climate was semi-arid and influenced by so-called megamonsoon, with a sharp contrast between very dry and rainy seasons causing the deposition of redbeds and evaporites. Rifting in the Arctic—North Atlantic region, most probably contemporaneous with a global sea-level rise caused flooding of the CEB through an incipient Viking Graben (Ziegler 1990). The deposition of the Kupferschiefer (copper shale) deposits is evidence of this flooding of the sub-sea-level intracontinental CEB by the Zechstein transgression. The Kupferschiefer represents one of the principal correlation units in NW European stratigraphy.