Dating the Lower Cretaceous in the Organyà section (Catalan Pyrenees, NE Spain): a reinterpretation

The Lower Cretaceous platform carbonates, near Organyà, are dealt with in a number of valuable biostratigraphic studies. They contain orbitolinids belonging to several lineages and significant assemblages of dasycladalean algae. Based on such an unequivocal material, the lower part of the Prada Formation is Upper Hauterivian p.p. and Lower Barremian, but certainly not Upper Barremian, as stated by Bernaus (LʹUrgonien du Bassin dʹOrganyà (NE Espagne): micropaléontologie, sédimentologie et stratigraphie séquentielle. Ph.D. thesis, Université J. Fourier, Grenoble, 206 pp., 1998; LʹUrgonien du Bassin dʹOrganyà (NE de lʹEspagne): micropaléontologie, sédimentologie et stratigraphie séquentielle. Géologie Alpine, Mém. H. S. 33, 138 pp., 2000) and Bernaus et al. (Cretac. Res. 23 (2002) 25; Sediment. Geol. 159 (2003) 177). Fundamental results of the comprehensive work of Becker (Rev. Paléobiol., Genève 18 (1999) 359) on local orbitolinids are confirmed. This is also the case of the long range, biostratigraphic and sequence stratigraphic correlations established by Schroeder et al. (Treb. Mus. Geol. Barc. 9 (2000) 5) with time-equivalent series calibrated with ammonites in SE France.