Diachronism turbiditic basins advanced countries Middle / Upper Cretaceous country Sault (Aude, French Pyrenees)

The cartographic, sedimentological and micropalaeontological analysis of remnants of Middle-Upper Cretaceous turbiditic basins from the 'Pays de Sault' (Aude, French Pyrenees) shows their diachronism (interpreted on a wider scale) and their sequence diversity. The 'Gesse breccias' are regarded as the proximal deposits of a Turonian narrow foreland basin, principally supplied by the erosion of the Jurassic-Lower Cretaceous cover of the High Primary Range to the south, induced by a strike-slip and overthrusting faulting within the en-echelon North-Pyrenean Fault Zone. More to the north, the North-Pyrenean 'Axat Basin' consists of two successive backstepping turbiditic wedges, respectively corresponding to an Upper Albian distal flysch and to a Middle-Upper Cenomanian more proximal flysch, all the series unconformably overlying structures that were folded then eroded before the Upper Albian. The previous concept of carbonate olistoliths included within the Axat Cenomanian flysch is also refuted: these large-size blocks are now interpreted as belonging to a tectonic slice destroyed and partly collapsed on the southern slope of the Rebenty Valley during the Quaternary.