The
Germanic Trias Supergroup is a
lithostratigraphic unit (a sequence of
rock strata) in the subsurface of large parts of western and central
Europe (north of the
Alps) and the
North Sea. Almost all of the Germanic Trias was deposited during the
Triassic period and consists of three clearly different units:
Buntsandstein,
Muschelkalk and
Keuper, that gave the period its name (
Triassic means "threefold"). In the past the names of these three units were also used as units in the
geologic timescale, but in modern literature they only have a lithostratigraphic meaning.