THE ROLE OF THE PAI-KHOI FOLD-AND-THRUST BELT IN THE EVOLUTION OF THE ARCTIC URALIDES, RUSSIAN ARCTIC

The Arctic Uralides, comprising Pai-Khoi, Novaya Zemlya, and the Taimyr Peninsula, form an arcuate extension of the Uralian Orogeny. The origin of this arcuate orogen is of considerable hydrocarbon importance as its component sectors form a fundamental tectonic boundary between major hydrocarbon provinces; Timan-Pechora and Barents Sea to the southwest and west, respectively, and the South Kara Sea to the east, itself an extension of the West Siberian Basin. In this contribution we focus on the NW-SE trending, Pai-Khoi fold-and-thrust belt (PKFB) that links the northernmost sector of the Uralian Orogen, the Polar Urals, with Novaya Zemlya approximately 600 km to the northwest.

The PKFB comprises a highly deformed, Late Cambrian to Mississippian age, passive margin succession, with allochthonous deep-water and continental slope facies rocks thrust over a shallow-water carbonate platform succession along the Main Pai-Khoi Thrust. Deformation is interpreted to have occurred during the Late Palaeozoic to end Triassic resulting in the formation of a southwesterly verging fold-and-thrust belt with an associated Permo-Triassic foreland basin, which is also a target for hydrocarbon exploration. Flexural loading of the Pai-Khoi sector appears to have initiated in Late Permian, and is younger than the Polar Urals (Early Permian).

An assessment of available data from the PKFB, the adjacent Polar Urals and Novaya Zemlya, plus new field data allows us to critically evaluate the various tectonic models proposed to explain the arcuate nature of the Arctic Uralides. The data favours a pre-collisional continental embayment model (Scott et al., 2010), suggesting the tectonic evolution of the Arctic Uralides and South Kara Sea are intimately linked.

Scott, R. A., Howard, J. P., Guo, L., Schekoldin, R., and Pease, V., 2010, Offset and curvature of the Novaya Zemlya fold-and-thrust belt, Arctic Russia, in Vining, B. A., and Pickering, S. C., eds., Petroleum Geology: From Mature Basins to New Frontiers - 7th Petroleum Geology Conference, Volume 1: London, Geological Society, p. 645-657.