Orbitally forced Lofer cycles in the Dachstein Limestone of the Julian Alps (northeastern Italy)

Lofer cyclothems of the Upper Triassic Dachstein Limestone of the Julian Alps (northeastern Italy) are the focus of a new sedimentological-cyclostratigraphic study. A 112-cycle-long field section reveals that the meter-scale basic cycle shallows upward, from subtidal megalodont-bearing subfacies to intertidal laminites, capped by a paleosol subfacies. Time-series analysis of a correlative grayscale scan of a high-resolution field photograph shows that a 166-m-thick succession of Lofer cycles has time-frequency characteristics consistent with Earth's precession index, suggesting that the Lofer cycles were generated by eustatic sea-level oscillations that were forced by Milankovitch cycles.