Palaeogeographic and palaeoclimate factors of salinity fluctuations in the eastern part of the Late Permian (Zechstein) European Basin: case study from the salt basin in Poland

Abstract: A study of the bromine content and facies in the salt successions (representing PZ1, PZ2 and PZ3 cycles) from the Late Permian (Zechstein) salt basin in Poland evidences fluctuations in mother brine concentrations. The study indicates that the local (better recorded in facies of the shallow basin and its margins) and regional changes were the result of Late Permian climate vari-ations and eustatic sea-level rises and drops. The observed trend for a lowering of brine concentration is attributed to more humid climate periods accompanied by frequent rainy seasons. Such a change from arid to more humid climatic conditions was observed in all three studied cycles, proving the variations of a dominant warm and dry climate, assumed for the inner part of the Pangea supercontinent in the Late Permian. The coastal zone of the Pangea supercontinent was more affected by the atmospheric perturbations, which were more frequent at the boundary between the continent and the ocean. The intracontinent areas were characterized with a more stable climate, thus interpreted by the authors, that the climate changes in the successions coming from the inner part of such intracontinental basin, far from the continent coasts (as the Polish part of the European Permian Basin) as the evidence for climate instability in the whole Zechstein period. The authors recorded the climate fluctuations in a