Home – Home – Jornals – Russian Geology and Geophysics 2011 number 8

In this study we report new Ar-Ar ages for basalt (261.0 ± 15, 249.4 ± 3.0, 247.0 ± 3.1 Ma) and rhyolite (246.9 ± 2.6 Ma) samples collected from the Triassic volcanosedimentary sequence, which is one of the remarkably complete and structurally complex sections in the southwest of the West Siberian geosyneclise (WSG) (East Kurganskaya-42 (EK-42) and East Kurganskaya-43 (EK-43) wells), largely comprising basalts and conformable layers of rhyolites, acid tuffs, limestones, and silty mudstones. It was shown that basalts, which constitute most of the section, are geochemically similar to medium-K tholeiitic and calc-alkaline basalts in the southern extension of the Koltogory-Urengoi rift (Nikol'skaya-1 well). Rhyodacites and rhyolites from the section of interest belong to the potassic to potassic-sodic series of normal alkalinity. The trace element compositions of the rhyolites and host basalts suggest fractionation from primary magmas during formation of felsic rocks. No low-K sheet-flow basalts have been encountered in the sections penetrated by the three wells (EK-42, EK-43, and Nikol'skaya-1), as opposed to sections in the northern part of the Koltogory-Urengoi rift (TSD-6 well) and the Siberian flood basalt province.
Despite their small thickness, the sedimentary units provide evidence for different depositional settings during the evolution of a volcanosedimentary basin. Similar to the Koltogory-Urengoi rift, deposition of the Presnogor'kovsk graben fill indicates intermittent marine conditions with accumulation of hyaloclastites, and fine, calcareous, silt- and clay-rich carbonaceous oozes associated with a background sedimentation, which contain abundant marine fauna, pyrite, and rare distal turbidites with glauconites. The geochemical features of these sedimentary rocks were largely defined by a bimodal syndepositional volcanism. During the Early Triassic, a system of rifts and grabens that was developed within the continental plateau over much of the WSG allowed the intermittent ingress of sea water from the north (in present coordinates) far southward and southwestward up to the latitude of Omsk and Kurgan. As a result of extensive erosion of the continental plateau, the packages of low-K sheet-flow basalts were removed from the upper part of the sections of deep wells, which became dominated by the eroded roots of the West Siberian traps (subalkaline and alkaline rift basalts).