Surface Microtextures of Quartz Grains and Origin of the Paleogene Sands in the Ulyanovsk-Syzran Volga Region

Abstract

Quartz grains were separated by standard sieving of the Paleogene sands from the Sosnovka Formation of the Ulyanovsk-Syzran Volga region, which are a scarce and valuable raw material for glass making and construction. In order to establish the origin of the sands and restore the facies conditions of their formation, the surface microtextures of the separated quartz grains were examined by optical and electron microscopy. It was shown that the clastic grains of the Sosnovka sands bear the signs of a multi-stage formation process under the conditions of subaquatic (beach zone), eolian, mixed subaquatic-eolian (coastal dunes), injective, and continental pedological settings. For the first time, a complex of microtextures characteristic of the extrusion of grains from deep horizons under pressure and inherent in the injection mechanism of sand formation was described. The diagnostic complex of injectites includes rotational microtextures, notched microtroughs, and deformed fluid inclusions. The rather fresh appearance of the listed microtextures suggests that they were superimposed on the coastal-marine and eolian stages of the evolution with the subsequent formation of sand intrusions. At the final stage of the geological history of the Sosnovka sands, the grains were shaped by the continental pedological conditions, when secondary silica in the form of globules and their clusters cemented the quartz grains, the surface of which concatenated the features of the previous stages. Based on the results of the study, an interpretation scheme summarizing various microtextural features of the reconstructed paleoenvironments and the stages of formation the Sosnovka sands was developed. The finding that the Sosnovka sands are sand intrusions is of great practical importance, as it necessitates new approaches to the discovery and prediction of glass and quartz sand deposits confined to the Paleogene Sosnovka Formation of the Ulyanovsk-Syzran Volga region.