The Novaya Zemlya fold-and-thrust-belt is the northern continuation of the late Palaeozoic Uralide Orogen. Little is known about its deeper structure and the basement history of the adjacent Barents and Kara shelves. Based on geological evidence and detrital zircon analysis of 28 samples from the northeastern and stratigraphically deepest part of the archipelago, we demonstrate that Cambro-Ordovician turbidite-dominated deposition was almost exclusively sourced from rocks consolidated during the Timanian orogeny (Timanian basement). A profound change in provenance occurred near the end of the Ordovician. Over 90% of the zircons from Silurian and about 80% from Devonian strata have ages characteristic of the Sveconorwegian Orogen, implying uplift of these rocks in the vicinity of Novaya Zemlya. The presence of Sveconorwegian and Grenvillian rocks in the high Arctic suggests revision of recent reconstructions of the Rodinia supercontinent, its break-up and subsequent Caledonian orogeny.
ISI Document Delivery No.: 241PW Times Cited: 7 Cited Reference Count: 42 Lorenz, Henning Gee, David G. Korago, Evgeny Kovaleva, Galina McClelland, William C. Gilotti, Jane A. Frei, Dirk Frei (ne Landwehr), Dirk/B-8410-2009 Swedish Polar Research Secretariat; BP; U.S. NSF [EAR0948359, EAR1049368, EAR-1032156] The Swedish Polar Research Secretariat contributed substantial financial support to the international expeditions (organized by Swedish and Russian colleagues) to Novaya Zemlya in 2004 and 2005. BP supported research at Uppsala University and financed the analysis of the DG samples. The stratigraphic context for samples (WM) 05-01 and (WM) 05-04 was provided by Lars Stemmerik and Geir Birger Larsen. Funding for analyses by McClelland was provided by U.S. NSF grants EAR0948359, EAR1049368 and EAR-1032156 to the Arizona Laserchron Center. Our thanks to Toby Rivers for constructive comments on an early version of this manuscript and James Howard, Bernard Bingen and Jan Golonka for subsequent advice. 7 Wiley-blackwell Hoboken Geosciences, Multidisciplinary