J. Serra-kiel

A magnetostratigraphy-based chronostratigraphy of the Paleogene Eastern Ebro Basin (NE Spain), ranging from chron C20n to chron C12r (Lutetian to Rupelian stages), challenges earlier biostratigraphic and magnetostratigraphic age constraints of the basin sedimentary infill. The correlation of the studied sequences with the Geomagnetic Polarity Time Scale provides relevant constraints for, first, the intercalibration of the Late Eocene nannofossil and larger foraminifers biostratigraphy and, second, the calibration of the european mammal paleogene biochronology at the Eocene-Oligocene transition. Results of this study are of relevance for the evolution of the foreland basin because it embraces a basin-wide marine-continental transition, which occurred as a rapid synchronous event 36 Ma ago. Basin continentalization occurred as the result of tectonic uplift of the Western Pyrenees, and was accompanied in the western areas by sudden two-fold increase in accumulation rates, as land-locki...

A correlation between the charophyte index-species Raskyella peckii and the biozonation of larger foraminifera (Shallow Benthic Zones SBZ 13 and SBZ 18) is proposed, which results in a widening to about 6 MA of the present known chronostratigraphic range of the charophyte species. The new range is Early Lutetian to Late Bartonian. This leads to a significant modification in charophyte