Tillites at the base of the Vendian Taseeva Group in the stratotype section (Siberian craton)

Isolated lenses of diamictites laying discordantly over the Late Riphean (Cryogenian) Kirgitei Formation were found in the immediate vicinity of the Vendian Taseeva Group stratotype in the Taseeva River valley and assigned to the Shishina Member a few meters in visible thickness. The Shishina diamictites are, likely, of glacial origin as they (i) lie at the base of the Vendian section, (ii) consist of unsorted dolomitic clasts from fine gravel to more than 0.5 m boulders suspended in a mud matrix, and (iii) show glacial striation on clasts. The glacial origin is further supported by the morphology of stones, which resemble a smoothing iron or a bullet, with a swelly top, a flat bottom, and a steeply cut rear and form clusters produced by disintegration of larger boulders. The stones bear signatures of cleavage, cracks, grooves, and striation on the faces, while the matrix looks undeformed. The Shishina Member has no genetic relation with the underlying Kirgitei Formation but rather correlates sedimentologically with the Ulyakha Member tillites at the base of the Vendian Marnya Formation (Oselok Group) in the Sayan foothills. The Shishina Member stones may derive from the Late Riphean (Cryogenian) Dzhura Formation exposed 4 km downstream of the site along the Taseeva. They occur near the base of the Aleshinsky Formation (lowermost unit of the Taseeva Group) of cross-bedded glaciofluvial sandstone, gravelstone, conglomerate, and sandy gravel mixtite transported from east to west (from the Siberian Craton interior to its margins) and deposited in channel bars or as gravel lags. The lower member of the Aleshinsky Formation comprises two associations of clasts: (i) coarse quartzose sand and gravel and (ii) fine and medium quartz and lithoclastic sand. Rocks in the former are well rounded, with traces of wind erosion, while the latter association is composed of mechanically eroded angular material transported to short distances from a metamorphic and metasedimentary source on the Craton margin. The Aleshinsky clastics have their composition and grain size patterns similar to those of the glaciofluvial Plity, Nersya, and Kedrovy members of the Marnya Formation in the Sayan area. According to sedimentological evidence, the Shishina diamictites are tillites identical to the Ulyakha moraine at the base of the Sayan Oselok Group and may be a missing link in the Taseeva Group stratigraphy.