Bioherms of the Bozhekhan uplift in the Cis-Baikal trough as a marginal barrier reef system of a Cambrian salt basin of the southern Siberian platform

Modern forecast, exploration and development of hydrocarbon deposits within natural carbonate reservoirs of buried bioherm (reef) structures in the north of the Irkutsk region and the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) areas within the NepaBotuoba Anticline apply the most advanced technologies of 3D seismic exploration and geoelectric prospecting supplemented with a set of new interpretation approaches and analysis attributes contrasted against wide range of well logging data. The recent discoveries of hydrocarbon deposits in the northern reefs shoved the bioherms of the Irkutsk amphitheater in the shadow. The purpose of this research is geological study of biohermal carbonate formations of the Lower Cambrian age in the outcrops of the Bozhekhansky megaswell in the Baikal region. The choice of this object of study is due to the fact that the first oil and gas inflows were obtained from the wells of the Atovskaya, Osinskaya, Birkinskaya, Khristoforovskaya, Balykhtinskaya and Tuturskaya areas. Field geological routes and office processing of data on cuts and polished thin sections of sample surfaces were carried out including microscopic studies in the thin sections of samples and archival collections of cores from deep oil and gas prospecting wells. In 2021–2022, while prospecting in the south of the Irkutsk amphitheater, the authors explored stratified, nodular and columnar stromatolites found within the compound Bozhekhan megaswell of Cambrian carbonate outcroppings. Carbonate intraformational sedimentary breccias identified in the area under investigation feature a great variety in their fragment sizes and inclusions. The stromatolites’ structural features were studied by the cuts and polished thin sections of sample surfaces. Microphytolites were found in the thin sections and described. The authors also took advantage of the opportunity to study an archive collection of the thin sections of VendCambrian and Lower Cambrian carbonate strata from the Akhinskaya area’s wells at the Bozhekhan megaswell and from the Upper-Lena uplift to the north-west. The conducted study implies that Cambrian bioherm outcroppings of the Bozhekhan megaswell-type uplift within the Cis-Baikal trough are, in a sense, model geologic objects. The study of biologic and genetic varieties of Lower Cambrian phytolites, diagnostic features of the organogenic structures, their inner structure and formation processes of the reef ecosystem may provide a region-level prognostic key to the research of Cambrian sediment system in the south of the Siberian platform.

Cis-Baikal trough, Lower Cambrian, biomorphic carbonates, stromatolites, phytolites, bioherms, silification