U-Pb age constraints on Carboniferous-Permian French continental basins - implications for their depositional history and correlations with European basins

International audience; Late Carboniferous to Permian basins of western Europe (~Gzhelian to Artinskian), developed during thelate stages of the Variscan orogeny in equatorial paleolatitudes. The stratigraphic context of most of thesebasins remains poorly constrained, because mainly based on “continental stages” (e.g., Stephanian, Autunian,Saxonian and Thuringian) that are diachronous. Therefore, correlating these basins together and withinternationally recognized stratigraphic marine stages requires precise radiochronologic ages.To the south of the Paris Basin (France), volcanic ash-fall layers (i.e., tonsteins) are interbedded in theCarboniferous-Permian sedimentary successions of the Aum…