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An early Hettangian coral reef in southern France: Implications for the end-Triassic reef crisis

¹ Museum für Naturkunde, Leibniz Institute for Research on Evolution and Biodiversity at the Humboldt University Berlin, Invalidenstr. 43, 10115 Berlin, Germany
² Institute of Palaeobiology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Twarda 51/55, 00-818 Warszawa, Poland
³ Laboratoire de Géologie des Systèmes et des Réservoirs Carbonatés, Université de Provence, Bâtiment de Sciences Naturelles, Case 67, 3 Place Victor Hugo, 13331 Marseille, France
⁴ VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Earth and Life Sciences (FALW), Department of Sedimentology and Marine Geology, De Boelelaan 1085, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands
⁵ wolfgang.kiessling{at}mfn-berlin.de

The oldest known Jurassic coral reef is exposed in the Ardèche region of southern France. This reef site, consisting of at least three reefal bodies, is of early Hettangian age and thus immediately postdates the end-Triassic mass extinction, which is well known for its catastrophic effect on reef building. Bulk carbonate carbon isotopes of the limestones below the reef are likely to record environmental perturbations subsequent to the mass extinction. The main reef is surprisingly well developed (20 m in thickness, 200 m in lateral extent) and composed of at least four genera and six species of corals—not only holdover genera from the Triassic, but also one newly evolved genus (Phacelophyllia), contributed to reef construction. Just like their latest Triassic counterparts, the reef is dominated by phaceloid corals with a considerable contribution of microbialite. The reef predates similarly well developed structures by almost ten million years. The shelf setting of the reef renders it unlikely that refuges around oceanic islands are needed to explain survival of corals across the end-Triassic mass extinction.