Lower Cretaceous (Hauterivian–Aptian) pelagic carbonates in the Danish Basin: new data from the Vinding-1 well, central Jylland, Denmark

Understanding of the shallow shelf system in the Danish Basin during the Early Cretaceous has benefitted significantly from studying the previously overlooked Hauterivian–Aptian section of the Vedsted Formation of the Vinding-1 drill core. The presence of chalks in this section demonstrates that carbonate-rich pelagic sediment accumulated locally in the siliciclastic-dominated Danish Basin and that benthic carbonate production was insignificant. The area was not a carbonate platform in the Early Cretaceous and does not indicate any reworked carbonate supply from platform environments in the vicinity. The scarcity of benthic macrofossils in the cored section is due to the lack of a specialised boreal chalk fauna at that time, and the adjacent nearshore environment apparently did not support any substantial benthic carbonate production. A revised biostratigraphy of the cored section is presented based primarily on calcareous nannofossils, supported by foraminifera, ostracods, and belemnites. Four lithofacies describe the spectrum from marlstone to slightly marly chalk, and the facies succession characterises four depositional units recording two discrete transgressive–regressive cycles. The study provides a depositional record that permits sequence stratigraphic correlation to the Valdemar and Adda Fields in the Central Graben.