Comment on “Chronostratigraphy and Paleoclimatology of the Lodève Basin, France: Evidence for a pan-tropical aridification event across the Carboniferous–Permian boundary” by Michel, L. A., Tabor, N. J., Montañez, I. P., Schmitz, M. D., & Davydov, V. I. (2015). Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 430, 118–131
Résumé
In a recent paper Michel et al. (2015) question our propositions
(see Pochat and Van den Driessche, 2011) that filling sequences in
Late Paleozoic continental basins do not necessarily reflect a global
climate change but must take into account the effect of tectonics at
different scales of time and space. Michel et al. (2015) challenge our
work by providing new radiometric data in the Graissessac-Lodève
Basin, which change the chronostratigraphic setting of the basin and
seem to invalidate our estimation of the sedimentation rates. Along
with this new framework, Michel et al. (2015) provide an analysis of
paleosol sequences in the basin. They finally propose the Graissessac-
Lodève Basin to be a textbook case of the effects of the increasing aridity
between Late Carboniferous to Early Permian times at the scale of
Pangea solely due to a global climate change. For the authors, tectonics
did not control the main sedimentary sequence of this basin, and the
sedimentary facies, especially paleosols, are univocally interpreted in
term of climate variation.