Le Gargasien de Gargas (Vaucluse, SE de la France) : synthèse des données de terrain et révision de la microfaune de foraminifères et d'ostracodes [The Gargasian of Gargas (Vaucluse, SE France): Synthesis of field data and revision of the foraminiferal and ostracodal microfauna]

Because of urbanization the section at Gargas, historical stratotype of the Aptian stage and of the Gargasian substage, is no longer accessible. However, samples taken there in 1966 by one of us make feasible a reinterpretation of this series in the light of taxonomic and biostratigraphic data from a recent study of Aptian microfaunas from La Tuilière area, some 5 km away.This new micropaleontologic interpretation shows that the historical section is truncated at its base : the lower (not lowermost) Gargasian is in quasi-direct contact with Urgonian limestones ; the uppermost (marly) Bedoulian, known to be present westward towards Le Chêne as well as at La Tuilière, is absent in the stratotype outcrop. In the samples from the stratotypic succession we have identified (bottom upward): * the upper part of the Praehedbergella luterbacheri zone and the Globigerinelloides ferreolensis zone, * the G. barri zone, * the beginning of the G. algerianus zone,i.e. these zones comprise the major part of the lower Gargasian, the middle Gargasian and the transition to the upper Gargasian.The upper part of the G. barri zone and the passage to the G. algerianus zone are in sandy marls of which the upper terms were said to have yielded ammonites of the "Clansayes horizon" (sensu ante). The microfauna does not resolve this apparent discrepancy, for its state of preservation degrades rapidly in the detrital levels, to the point of quasi-disappearance in sands overlying the Clansayesian auct. A comparison with the sector of Banon, only some 10 km away, led us to suggest that these sands cropping out at top of the Gargas Hill might be of Late Albian-Vraconnian age.