Magneto-biostratigraphy of the Spathian to Anisian (Early to Middle Triassic) Kçira section (Northern Albania).

Magneto-biostratigraphic data from a 44 m-thick Early/Middle Triassic Han-Bulog Limestone succession from Kçira (northern Albania) are presented here. The magnetic stratigraphy is well estabilished in its general features. A normal (Kc1n)-reverse (Kc1r)-normal (Kc2n)-reverse (Kc2r)-normal (Kc3n)-reverse (Kc3r) polarity sequence is complicated by four short polarity intervals, one at the base of Kc1n and three comprised within Kc1r. The lower normal and the upper reverse miss, respectively, the base and the top. The Early/Middle Triassic boundary, based on ammonoids and conodonts, falls close to the Kc1r/Kc2n polarity transition. This is in good agreement with magneto-biostratigraphic data from the coheval Chios (Greece) section of Muttoni et al. (in press). The paleomagnetic pole calculated from the Kçira characteristic directions lies close to the Triassic portion of the Europe Apparent Polar Wander Path of Van der Voo (1993). Nevertheless, Speranza et al. (1995) report a ≈45° clockwise rotation of the external zone of Albania since the Early-Middle Miocene. The Kçira pole, when restored for the Speranza et al.'s ≈45° clockwise rotation, acquires an African affinity and plots also close to the Middle Triassic.