A Reconstruction of a Vendian–Cambrian Active Continental Margin within the Southern Urals: Results of Detrital Zircons Studying from Ordovician Terrigenous Rocks

Abstract

Detrital zircons of Ordovician terrigenous sequences are studied in various Southern Uralian tectonic units. The age of detrital zircons of the West Uralian and Transuralian megazones, Taganai–Beloretsk Zone, and Kraka allochthons spans from the Late Archean to the end of the Vendian– beginning of the Cambrian; Early Precambrian and Early–Middle Riphean zircons are the most abundant. Vendian–Cambrian detrital zircons are strongly dominant in the Uraltau Zone, Sakmara allochthons, and East Uralian Megazone; the zircons of other ages are absent or extremely rare. The Vendian–Cambrian detrital zircons of all Southern Urals zones probably derive from volcanic and granitic rocks of the marginal continental belt, which are part of the Uraltau Zone, Sakmara allochthons, and East Uralian Megazone. The Lu–Hf isotopic characteristics of Vendian–Cambrian detrital zircons indicate that their parental rocks formed on a heterogeneous basement that includes blocks of juvenile and ancient continental crust. According to a model of the pre-Ordovician tectonic evolution of the Southern Urals, at the end of the Late Riphean, the passive margin of the East European Platform collided with a block on a heterogeneous basement. The formation of the block terminated with the Grenville Orogeny. After collision, a volcano-plutonic belt originated in the Vendian–Cambrian at the actively evolved margin of the East European Platform.