Paleomagnetism of Devonian and Carboniferous sedimentary rocks of Spitsbergen: to the Paleozoic history of the Barents-Kara basin framing

We present the results of studying the paleomagnetic samples of Carboniferous and Devonian rocks collected in 1986–1987 from the Island of Spitsbergen. The paleomagnetic poles determined from these collections are compared to the poles from the coeval rocks of the Russian Platform. On the basis of these results and the available data of the World paleomagnetic database, the paleogeographic layout of Spitsbergen and the Russian Platform in Early Devonian and Early Triassic are reconstructed. The reconstructions demonstrate a common north-northwestern drift of these units from the southern equatorial latitudes in the Early Devonian to the middle northern latitudes with a small (800 km) convergence, compared to this drift, of Spitsbergen with the Russian Platform by the Early Triassic, which is followed by the subsequent retrograde motion.