AbstractThe Julian Alps (western Slovenia) structurally belong to the eastern Southern Alps. The Upper Triassic succession mostly consists of shallow water platform carbonates of the Dolomia Principale-Dachstein Limestone system and a deep water succession of the Slovenian Basin outcropping in the southern foothills of the Julian Alps. In addition to the Slovenian Basin, a few other intraplatform basins were present, but they remain poorly researched and virtually ignored in the existing paleogeographic reconstructions of the eastern Southern Alps. Herein, we describe a deepening-upward succession from the Tamar Valley (north-western Slovenia), belonging to the Upper Triassic Tarvisio Basin. The lower, Julian-Tuvalian part of the section comprises peritidal to shallow subtidal carbonates (Conzen Dolomite and Portella Dolomite), and an intermediate carbonate-siliciclastic unit, reflecting increased terrigenous input and storm-influenced deposition (Julian-lowermost Tuvalian shallow-water marlstone and marly limestone of the Tor Formation). Above the drowning unconformity at the top of the Portella Dolomite, Tuvalian well-bedded dolomite with claystone intercalations follows (Carnitza Formation). The latter gradually passes into the uppermost Tuvalian–lowermost Rhaetian bedded dolomite with chert and slump breccias, deposited on a slope and/or at the toe-of-slope (Bača Dolomite). Finally, basinal thin-bedded bituminous limestone and marlstone of Rhaetian age follow (Frauenkogel Formation). The upper part of the Frauenkogel Formation contains meter-scale platform-derived limestone blocks, which are signs of platform progradation. The Tarvisio Basin may have extended as far as the present Santo Stefano di Cadore area, representing a notable paleogeographic unit at the western Neotethys margin.
The start-up of the Dolomia Principale/Hauptdolomit carbonate platform (Upper Triassic) in the eastern Southern Alps
