Ernstbrunn Limestone and Klentnice Beds (Kimmeridgian – Berriasian; Waschberg-Ždánice Unit; NE Austria and SE Czech Republic). State of the art and bibliography

This paper summarises the knowledge of the Ernstbrunn Limestone and Klentnice beds and provides a comprehensive scientific bibliography on these strata. At outcrop both lithostratigraphic units occur as so-called “tectonic klippen” inserted in the autochthonous sedimentary succession of the Waschberg-Ždánice Unit. The latter is a distal, transitional Alpine-Carpathian tectonic nappe that extends between the Danube and Thaya rivers in Lower Austria and southern Moravia. Both strata have also been identified from several drillings and belong to the autochthonous Mesozoic succession deposited on the southern slope of the Bohemian Massif. Ammonite biostratigraphy and micropalaeontology reveal a Kimmeridgian to early Late Tithonian age for the Klentnice beds and a Middle Tithonian to Berriasian (?Hauterivian) age for the Ernstbrunn Limestone. The Ernstbrunn-Pavlov Carbonate Platform gradually developed from the Klentnice beds and persisted during the Jurassic-Cretaceous transition. The rock record provides evidence for lagoonal and patch reef facies and fringing ooid-oncoid bars, all attributed to the Ernstbrunn Limestone. The gradual transition to more distal, siliciclastically-influenced settings is formed by the upper portion of the Klentnice beds that developed as lateral equivalents of the carbonates. In places, both strata are highly fossiliferous. The lagoonal limestones preserve a megadiverse, mollusc-dominated assemblage of more than 500 species of invertebrates and calcareous algae. Most abundant taxa include Heterodiceras and Epidiceras bivalves (basal rudists), nerineid gastropods, decapods, ammonites, corals, and dasycladaceans. As a result of diagenetic aragonite loss, the fauna of the Klentnice beds appears impoverished and is dominated by echinoderms, calcareous sponges, and brachiopods. A remarkably large portion of the complex depositional and natural environment of the Ernstbrunn Limestone and Klentnice beds is preserved both at outcrop and in subsurface and still awaits systematic scientific effort in various fields.