More gaps than record! A new look at the Pliensbachian/Toarcian boundary event guided by coupled chemo-sequence stratigraphy

The Pliensbachian/Toarcian boundary (Pl/To) event precedes by ca. 1 Myr the onset of the Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event. It corresponds to a second order mass extinction associated with an outstanding collapse of shallow marine ecosystems at global scale. Yet, our knowledge about its exact driver(s) and unfolding is relatively ambiguous due to the numerous hiatuses present in the sedimentary record during this critical time interval. In this study, an integrated carbon isotope chemostratigraphy and sequence stratigraphy approach is applied to two case studies (the upper Pliensbachian in South-East France and the Pliensbachian–Toarcian transition in Morocco) to demonstrate how the major changes in sea-level and sedimentation supply accompanying the Pl/To event led to the formation of ubiquitous, often cryptic hiatal surfaces in the sedimentary record. Hence, as a consequence of strongly progradational stacking pattern during the latest Pliensbachian related to a global sea-level lowstand associated with cold greenhouse climate, proximal settings were characterized by bypass and/or erosion, inducing an incomplete record of the Spinatum chronozone in localities situated in the outer part of sedimentary basins. In the earliest Toarcian, the collapse of the neritic carbonate factory led to a halt of carbonate mud export into the basin, resulting in sediment starvation in most basins characterized by a carbonate-dominated sedimentation regime before the environmental perturbation. Only localities where vigorous siliciclastic sediment supply took over are likely to have a more complete sedimentary record of the immediate aftermath of the carbonate production collapse. This combination of causes explains the ubiquitous incompleteness of the record of the Pliensbachian/Toarcian transition in numerous European localities where the bulk of our current understanding about the Pl/To event derives from. A comparison between the two known most expanded and complete records of the Pliensbachian–Toarcian transition of the Llanbedr (Mochras Farm) core in Wales and Bou Oumardoul n'Imazighn section in Morocco shows that the onset of the environmental perturbations is associated with a positive carbon isotope excursion spanning the Pliensbachian/Toarcian boundary. This is followed by a negative carbon isotope excursion during the earliest Toarcian that coincides with the global collapse of neritic carbonate factory and an ample sea-level fall.