Reconstruction of provenances and carboniferous tectonic events in the North-East Siberian Craton framework according to U-Pb dating of detrital zircons

Abstract

The U-Pb dating of detrital zircons from Carboniferous rocks in the northern frontal zone of the Verkhoyansk Fold-and-Thrust Belt (Kharaulakh Anticlinorium) at the boundary with the Siberian Platform is carried out for the first time. The age distribution of detrital zircons from the four dated samples has much in common, indicating that the same sources of clastic material were predominant. All of the samples are dominated by Precambrian zircons; the majority of them are Paleo- and Neoproterozoic grains. Early Ordovician and Late Devonian-Early Carboniferous detrital zircons are also numerous. The igneous rocks of the Taimyr-Severnaya Zemlya and/or Central Asian foldbelts extending along the northern, western, and southwestern margins of the Siberian continent probably were the main source areas of the studied sedimentary successions. The clastic material was transferred at a great distance by large river systems similar to the present-day Mississippi River and deposited in submarine fans at the passive margin of the Siberian continent. The occurrence of the detrital zircons whose age is synchronous to the time of sedimentation of the Carboniferous successions in the northern Verkhoyansk region (320–340 Ma) allows us to suggest that they were derived from the Taimyr-Severnaya Zemlya Foldbelt and that collision of the Kara Block with the Siberian continent began in the Early Carboniferous. The performed study shows the dating of detrital zircons is very helpful for the paleogeographic and tectonic reconstructions.