Riphean fine-grained aluminosilicate clastic rocks in the Southern Urals, Uchur-Maya area, and the Yenisei Kryazh: Principal litho-geochemical characteristics

Analysis of the litho-geochemistry of fine-grained terrigenous rocks (metapelites, shales, and mudstones) of sedimentary megasequences in the Southern Urals, Uchur-Maya area, and the Yenisei Kryazh indicates that Riphean sequences in these regions are dominated by chlorite-hydromica rocks, with montmorillonite and potassic feldspar possibly occurring only in some of the lithostratigraphic units. According to the values of their hydrolysate modulus, most clay rocks from the three Riphean metamorphosed sedimentary sequences are normal or supersialites, with hydrosialites and hydrolysates playing subordinate roles. The most lithochemicaly mature rocks are Riphean clays in the Yenisei Kryazh (Yenisei Range). The median value of their CIA is 72, whereas this index is 70 for fine-grained aluminosilicate rocks from the Uchur-Maya area and 66 for fine-grained terrigenous rocks of the Riphean stratotype. Hence, at ancient water provenance areas from which aluminosilicate clastic material was transported in sedimentation basins in the southwestern (in modern coordinates) periphery of the Siberian Platform, the climate throughout the whole Riphean was predominantly humid. At the same time, the climate at the eastern part of the East European Platform was semiarid-semihumid. The K₂O/Al₂O₃ ratio, which is employed as an indicator of the presence of petro-and lithogenic aluminosilicate clastic component in Riphean sedimentary megasequences, shows various tendencies. According to their Sc, Cr, Ni, Th, and La concentrations and the Th/Sc ratio, the overwhelming majority of Riphean shales and mudstones notably differ from the average Archean mudstone and approach the average values for post-Archean shales. This suggests that mafic Archean rock in the provenance areas did not play any significant role in the origin of Riphean sedimentary megasequences. The Co/Hf and Ce/Cr ratios of the terrigenous rocks of the three Riphean megaseqeunces and their (Gd/Yb) _N and Eu/Eu* ratios place these rocks among those containing little (if any) erosion products of primitive Archean rocks. According to various geochemical data, the source of the great majority of fine-grained aluminosilicate clastic rocks in Riphean sediment megasequences in our study areas should have been mature sialic (felsic), with much lower contents of mafic and intermediate rocks as a source of the clastic material. The REE patterns of the Riphean shales and metapelites in the Bashkir Meganticlinorium, Uchur-Maya area, and Yenisei Kryazh show some features that can be regarded as resulting from the presence of mafic material in the ancient provenance areas. This is most clearly seen in the sedimentary sequences of the Uchur-Maya area, where the decrease in the (La/Yb) _N ratio up the sequence of the fine-grained terrigenous rocks from 15–16.5 to 5.8–7.1 suggests that mantle mafic volcanics were brought to the upper crust in the earliest Late Riphean in relation to rifting. Analysis of the Sm-Nd systematics of the Riphean fine-grained rocks reveals the predominance of model age values in the range of 2.5–1.7 Ga, which can be interpreted as evidence that the rocks were formed of predominantly Early Proterozoic source material. At the same time, with regard for the significant role of recycling in the genesis of the upper continental crust, it seems to be quite possible that the ancient provenance areas contained Archean complexes strongly recycled in the Early Proterozoic and sediments formed of their material. An additional likely source of material in the Riphean was mafic rocks, whose variable contribution is reflected in a decrease in the model age values. Higher Th and U concentrations in the Riphean rocks of the Yenisei Kryazh compared to those in PAAS indicate that the sources of their material were notably more mature than the sources of fine-grained aluminosilicate clastic material for the sedimentary megaseqeunces in the Southern Urals and Uchur-Maya area.