Provenance of the Mesozoic Succession of Franz Josef Land (North‐Eastern Barents Sea): Paleogeographic and Tectonic Implications for the High Arctic

Abstract

The Barents Sea sedimentary basin represents one of the key prospective regions for hydrocarbon resources in the Arctic realm (Figures 1a and 1b). However, while the Norwegian part of the Barents Sea is covered by a dense network of seismic lines and penetrated by numerous wells, the Russian portion is comparatively poorly studied. To date, the sedimentary succession of the Russian part has only been penetrated by a few wells drilled in the southern part of the basin and four wells drilled onshore across the Franz Josef Land (FJL) archipelago. FJL represents an important region, where the Mesozoic succession is exposed onshore for geological study (Figure 2b). Due to the lack of offshore wells, this archipelago represents the only area in the north-eastern Barents Sea where the Mesozoic succession can be directly described and sampled, offering vital insights into the geological evolution of this insufficient studied region.The deeper pre-Mesozoic succession of the north-eastern Barents Sea has been mainly constrained by seismic data (

Provenance of Detrital Rutiles from the Triassic–Jurassic Sandstones in Franz Josef Land (Barents Sea Region, Russian High Arctic): U-Pb Ages and Trace Element Geochemistry

“…A previous provenance study of the Triassic-Cretaceous strata on FJL on the same samples was based on the U-Pb and (U-Th)/He dating of detrital zircons [36]. Detrital zircon U-Pb dating revealed that Triassic grains form a small peak at 220-230 Ma.…”

“…The Barents continental shelves supposedly comprise Neoproterozoic and Early-Middle Paleozoic basement domains [29][30][31][32]. The pre-Mesozoic stratigraphic framework of FJL is based on the stratigraphy penetrated by the deep Nagurskaya well, drilled on Alexandra Land Island in the westernmost part of the archipelago [33][34][35], along with a detailed studied of the conglomerates containing reworked clasts of older stratigraphy in the south-eastern part of FJL [36].…”

“…Detrital zircon (U-Th)/He (ZHe) dating previously [36] was carried out for samples 7-v15-9 and 15AP30. All obtained ZHe ages were older than the depositional ages of the studied deposits, suggesting that these rocks have not been buried deeper than 6-7 km since deposition (assuming a typical continental crust geothermal gradient of 30 • C/km).…”

“…Therefore, the ZHe ages reflect the timing of exhumation and cooling in the provenance area. A total of eighteen ZHe ages showed a 180-349 Ma age range, with most of these ages grouping at approximately 225 Ma [36].…”

Sequence stratigraphy and palaeogeography of the Upper Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous in the Eastern Barents Sea

“…On the islands of Wilczek and Klagen‐Furth of Franz Josef Land archipelago, ammonite remains are found at the base of the Lower Cretaceous strata, and there are no fossils of marine fauna in younger rocks (Repin et al., 2007). Jurassic and Berriasian–Hauterivian deposits are unconformably overlain by Barremian–Albian coal‐bearing, volcanic‐sedimentary rocks and basalts (Ershova et al., 2022; Shkarubo et al., 2017). The volcanic‐sedimentary sequence contains imprints of leaves, carbonatised and silicified wood remains and myospores, which allow dating of the sequence to the Barremian, Aptian and Albian.…”