Detrital zircon ages and provenance of the Late Neoproterozoic and Palaeozoic successions on Severnaya Zemlya, Kara Shelf: a tie to Baltica

The Neoproterozoic to Devonian sedimentary successions of Severnaya Zemlya, in the Russian high Arctic, have been sampled for detrital zircon provenance studies. 50-100 zircons were analyzed from 11 samples and, of these, about 60% (c. 500 totally) were used for the geological interpreta- tion. Most of the samples show a similar Precambrian age spectrum, including a strong, prominent peak in the Late Vendian to Early Cambrian and well defined Mesoproterozoic populations reaching back into the Late Palaeoproterozoic. Only a few older zircons are present, composing minor populations at c. 2.7 Ga. The younger samples (Ordovician and Devonian) also contain an Early-Mid Ordovician population, probably related to local igneous activity. The detrital zircon age spectrum of Severnaya Zemlya constitutes a strong link to the Timanian margin of northwestern Rus- sia, providing support for the interpretation that this part of the high Arctic was a northern continuation of Baltica’s eastern passive margin in the Early Palaeozoic. It may also have had close connections not only with the Northern Belt of the Tajmyr Orogen, but also to the Central Belt, which was accreted to Siberia in the Vendian