Arkell.1956.Jurassic..

GREECE AND THE IONIAN ISLES J
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continuation of that in Albania. It is characterized by normal 'foreland'
sedimentation, which appears to have been continuous from Middle
Trias to Aquitanian. Farther east, in the Pindus and eastern facies belts,
except for the occurrence of Toarcian Ammonitico rosso in Argolis
(Renz, 1907) the only horizons identified are Upper Jurassic (Diceras
and Acteonina limestones; Lower Kimeridgian Cladocoropsis limestone;
Tithonian limestones with Ellipsactinia and Sphaeractinia). These occur
in the Parnass-Chiona series, which is a continuation of the high karst
region of Montenegro and Croatia, and in it limestones, with dolomite,
reach their greatest stratigraphical span. This limestone tract separates
two belts where shales and cherts predominate, as in the Viglaes Beds of
the foreland.
In the East Hellenic belt the shales and cherts are associated with
ophiolitic igneous rocks, especially serpentines, which are overstepped
by Upper Cretaceous limestones. This belt is supposed to be a continuation
of the serpentine and ophiolite region of inner Albania (Renz,
1940, pp. 105-7). ^ Renz's dating is correct, the igneous phase in Greece
is Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous; therefore substantially later
than farther north in the Dinaric ranges, if Pilger and Ledebur are correct
in referring the climax there to the Middle Trias. Direct palaeontological
evidence does not seem to be recorded for Greece, but it appears that Renz
relied mainly upon correlation with the cherty beds and hornstone series
in the more westerly facies belts, where they are definitely dated to the
Upper Jurassic and Bathonian (see below). Moreover, a migration of
igneous activity into younger formations southward is confirmed by the
occurrence of ophiolites in Tertiary flysch, both on the mainland and in
Crete, Rhodes and Cyprus (Renz, 1940, pp. 105-6). On the other hand, in
Cyprus the radiolarites are Triassic and the pillow-lavas are believed to
be Cretaceous (see p. 348).
Our knowledge of Greek geology, and of the Mesozoic rocks in
particular, is mainly due to the life's work of Carl Renz (1876-1951).
A complete list of his 126 papers on Greece published down to 1940 is
printed in Renz, 1940, pp. 158-66, and a selection of the most important,
on which the present account is mainly based, is listed on p. 690.
He began his researches in Corfu in 1903 and continued them almost
every year thereafter, as a labour of love, bringing a wide experience of
many lands from Portugal to the Caucasus to bear on the problems.
The sum total of his work is an abiding monument to his memory.*
The following is a summary of the stratigraphy of the Jurassic of western
Greece and southern Albania—the Adriatic-Ionian province or facies
belt, within which, however, there are several minor changes of facies
* Through the generosity of Frau Renz, all the papers listed on p. 690 are in my
reprint collection (making six bound volumes). It may save others fruitless search to
state that the 'Geology and Stratigraphy of Greece' mentioned in a faulty translation
in the Amer. Journ. Sci., vol. 245, 1947, p. 179, does not exist in any language. The
reference should read 'Beitrage zur Strat. u. Pal. des ostmediterranen Jungpalaeozoikum,
Teil I, II: Geologie u. Stratigraphie, von C. Renz.'
http://jurassic.ru/