Cretaceous–Eocene Flysch of the Sochi Synclinorium (Western Caucasus): Sources of Clastic Material Based on the Results of U–Th–Pb Isotope Dating of Detrital Zircons

Abstract

The first results of the U–Th–Pb isotope dating of detrital zircons (dZr, N = 130, n = 91) from the middle Danian sandstones (63.9–65.3 Ma) of the Cretaceous–Eocene Novorossiisk–Anapa flysch widely developed in the Sochi synclinorium (southern slope of the Western Caucasus) are presented. The maximum and minimum dZr age is 2973 ± 12 Ma and 318 ± 3 Ma, respectively; weighted average age of the four youngest dZr is ~322 ± 7 Ma. There are no signs of erosion products of the Jurassic magmatites involved in the structure of the Greater Caucasus and Crimean Mountains into the sedimentary basin, where the Novorossiisk–Anapa flysch was formed. The results have revealed a high degree of similarity between the provenance signals of the Danian sandstones from the Novorossiisk–Anapa flysch, some Paleogene–Neogene and Early Quaternary (Early Pleistocene) sandstones of the Western Caucasus and Western Cis-Caucasia, red-colored Upper Permian and Lower Triassic sandstones of the Moscow syneclise, as well as Late Quaternary alluvium at lower reaches of the Don and Volga rivers draining vast expanses of the Russian Plate. These facts suggest: (1) the absence of eroded mountain structures of the Greater Caucasus and Crimea in the middle Danian; (2) the main volume of detrital material composing the Novorossiisk–Anapa flysch was formed due to the recycling of Permian–Triassic and younger sequences of the Russian Plate.