The Red Marble of Baelen, an exceptional mid-Famennian mud mound complex in a carbonate ramp setting from Eastern Belgium

The Red Marble of Baelen from the Limbourg area (Vesdre Basin, Eastern Belgium) represents a member of the middle Famennian (late Upper Devonian) Souverain-Pré Formation (Late marginifera conodont Zone). It corresponds to a short-term transgressive event and eustatic rise during the Famennian, interrupting the regressive megasequence on the Condroz shelf in Belgium. It is the only known or at least the only well-documented mid-Famennian carbonate mud mound complex worldwide, after the end-Frasnian mass extinction that wiped out numerous invertebrate taxa.