The Carnian Pluvial Event in Western Europe: New data from Iberia and correlation with the Western Neotethys and Eastern North America–NW Africa regions

At the beginning of the Late Triassic, a period of increased precipitation occurred over large tracts of Central Pangea, the “Carnian Pluvial Event”. It was a short-lived event (> 1 Ma), coeval with a marked sea-level fall and active rifting. New and classical sections of Carnian age in the Iberian Peninsula have been studied and a new correlation scheme is proposed for the Iberian domain, integrating field data and subsurface electric log data. This is the first time that the Portuguese and Spanish Late Triassic (Carnian) sediments are correlated. The “Carnian Pluvial Event” is identified in the Iberian Peninsula as a continental clastic wedge (Manuel Fm. and coeval sediments) in between marine evaporite formations during a marked sea-level drop event; its age is considered to be Julian (early Carnian) by palynological and paleogeographic considerations. A new correlation of the Late Triassic sediments of the Iberian Peninsula with coeval sediments of Western Europe, NW Africa and Eastern North America is proposed and a new paleogeographical map of Central Eastern Pangea for this period is presented in order to demonstrate that the geographical extent of the siliciclastic sediments related to the “Carnian Pluvial Event” was much larger than accepted before.