The stratigraphy of the Serbian Pleistocene Corbicula beds

Abstract

© 2014 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. Fossils of non-marine molluscs are among the most prominent in continental Pleistocene deposits of Europe. With stabilization of taxonomies in the 19th century, numerous publications appeared with faunal lists of warm/temperate stage taxa, but few attempts were made to interpret the data. The goal of recent work, along with the re-evaluation of sites and their molluscan assemblages described in the literature, is to enable non-marine molluscan faunas to be used as guide fossils for the analysed fluvial sequences in the classification of climato-lithostratigraphic principles. The biostratigraphic scheme developed in this work is comparable with parallel investigations of other fossil records and climato-lithostratigraphy combined with geochronologic methods. In earlier literature, the Pleistocene Corbicula record was mentioned in Makiš beds ("Makiški slojevi"), in the Corbicula fluminalis beds ("slojevi sa C. fluminalis") of Szentes deposits ("Senteški slojevi"), as well as being associated with the Viviparus boeckhi Horizon as defined by Halaváts in the late 19th century. In Serbian records, the most important locations of the Pleistocene Corbicula beds are in the south-eastern part of the Pannonian Plain, which corresponds to the lowland river valleys of the (paleo) Danube, (paleo)Sava and (paleo)Tisza, and the western margin of the Dacian realm. Pleistocene Corbicula beds were formed as warm stage fluvial (and palustrine) deposits, and they are climate-lithostratigraphic units. Pleistocene Corbicula beds are younger than Upper Paludina beds (defined as the lower part of the Lower Pleistocene) in the Pannonian realm or the Romanian stage in the Dacian realm. According to the molluscan assemblage, palaeogeographical features and other paleontological contents (vertebrate fauna, ostracods), they are older than the Upper Pleistocene. According to the reference data and the composition of the molluscan assemblage, the V. boeckhi Horizon has been identified as a biostratigraphic unit. Fortunately, the V.boeckhi Horizon can be adopted to the Serbian climato-lithostratigraphy model of the fluvial warm stages and represents the lowermost part/subunit of the Pleistocene Corbicula beds of Lower Pleistocene age.