International Field Workshop on 'The Triassic of eastern France'

I. - Introduction
The Triassic of eastern France
The Triassic of the Paris Basin was deposited in an intracratonic peri-Tethyan basin (Perrodon &
Zabek, 1990) and its succession is characterized by (Dubois and Umbach, 1974; Courel et al., 1980): (i)
fluvial and playa deposits during the Early Triassic, i.e. Buntsandstein facies, (ii) evaporite and marine
deposits during the Middle Triassic, i.e. Muschelkalk facies and (iii) mainly evaporite and fluvial deposits
during the Late Triassic, i.e. Keuper facies. During the Early and Middle Triassic, the Paris and Bresse-Jura
basins formed the western end of the Germanic Basin. The Paris Basin only existed as an independent basin
from the Middle Carnian onwards (Bourquin and Guillocheau, 1993, 1996).
The terminology used in the eastern part of the Paris Basin is indicated in the Table 1.
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Table 1: Terminology used in the eastern part
of the Paris Basin (after Courel et al., 1980