The Novaya Zemlya Basin in the early Devonian

The Novaya Zemlya archipelago is located in the Arctic, between the Barents and Kara Seas, and is a part of the Pay Khoy–Novaya Zemlya folded region composed mainly of the Paleozoic sedimentary rocks. Among them, the Devonian sediments represented by a variety of marginal-continental and marine facies, from coastal–marine and shelf shallow-water to bathyal, are widely d istributed. The distribution of these sediments allow distinguishing two structure form zones: Barentsian and Kara, which began to separate in the Prairie–Emsian ages of the Early Devonian. The Barents structure form zone is characterized by thick, predominantly carbonate sediments containing a rich complex of remains of benthos organisms. It is assumed that this zone represents the shelf paleoenvironments. The Kara structure form zone is characterized by thin clayey, calcareous and siliceous sediments. This zone presumably corresponds to bathyal paleoenvironments. The Devonian stratigraphy of Novaya Zemlya is sufficiently well studied, especially in terms of biostratigraphy. The lithological and stratigraphic dissection of the Devonian has been carried out, mainly, in the course of medium-scale group geological survey. The study of the lithological features of the sediments indicates consistent deepening of the basin and removal from the sources of terrigenous material during the Early Devonian era. In addition to deepening, the basin is also divided into shelf and bathyal parts by the end of the Ems. The authors are very grateful to their former colleagues from the geological exploration party of Novaya Zemlya for the field data provided. The authors highly appreciate the cooperation with geologists from the Cambridge Arctic Shelf Programme (CASP), particularly to Doctor Li Guo. The authors greatly thank the academic administration of the Empress Catherine II Saint-Petersburg Mining University and personally Rector Professor V. S. Litvinenko for the benefit of laboratory investigation of rocks.