Yurmatinian/Karatavian Boundary in the Riphean Stratotype: Comparison of the Geochemical Features of Clay Rocks of the Avzyan Formation and Biryan Subformation (Zilmerdak Formation)

Abstract

The results of a comparison of various ratios of trace elements-indicators of the composition of provenances for clay rocks of the Middle Riphean Avzyan Formation and the Upper Riphean Biryan Subformation of the Zilmerdak Formation (Bashkirian meganticlinorium, Southern Urals) are analyzed. The formation of these two objects is separated by a hiatus, with the maximum duration up to 250 Ma. The study is based on materials related to the content of trace elements in clay/fine-grained clastic rocks, respectively, of the Avzyan Formation (28 samples) and Biryan Subformation (16 samples) from the collections of E.Z. Gareev and the author, obtained by the ICP-MS method at the IGG Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Yekaterinburg). Distribution of individual and average data points of clay rocks of the named objects on La/Sc–Th/Co, Sc–Th/Sc, Eu/Eu*–Th/Sc, Ni–V–10Th, Th–La–Sc, Y/Ni–Cr/V, Cr/Th–Th/Sc, and Hf–La/Th diagrams are significantly comparable. The chondrite-normalized spectra of rare earth elements (REE) are also comparable. Only on the Th–Th/U diagram, the distribution of data points has a slightly different form, suggesting that either the provenance composition was invariable for almost 250 Ma, the duration of the pre-Upper Riphean hiatus was not so long, the author’s analytics are “lame”, or there are other reasons.