The role of the Pai-Khoi fold-and-thrust belt in the evolution of the Arctic Uralides and South Kara Sea, Russian Arctic

The Arctic Uralides, comprising Pai-Khoi, Novaya Zemlya, and the Taimyr Peninsula, form an arcuate extension of the Uralian Orogeny. The origin of this arcuate orogen is of considerable hydrocarbon importance as its component sectors form a fundamental tectonic boundary between major hydrocarbon provinces; Timan-Pechora and Barents Sea to the southwest and west, respectively, and the South Kara Sea to the east, itself an extension of the West Siberian Basin. In this contribution we focus on the NW-SE trending, Pai-Khoi fold-and-thrust belt (PKFB) that links the northernmost sector of the Uralian Orogen, the Polar Urals, with Novaya Zemlya approximately 600 km to the northwest.

The PKFB comprises a highly deformed, Late Cambrian to Mississippian age, passive margin succession, with allochthonous deep-water and continental slope facies rocks thrust over a shallow-water carbonate platform succession along the Main Pai-Khoi Thrust. Deformation is interpreted to have occurred during the Late Palaeozoic to end Triassic resulting in the formation of a southwesterly verging fold-and-thrust belt with an associated Permo-Triassic foreland basin, which is itself a target for hydrocarbon exploration. Flexural loading of the Pai-Khoi sector appears to have been a diachronous event that youngs from the Polar Urals to Novaya Zemlya, between mid-Cisuralian to latest Permian, respectively.

An assessment of available data from the PKFB, together with the adjacent Polar Urals and Novaya Zemlya, allows us to critically evaluate the various tectonic models proposed to explain the arcuate nature of the Arctic Uralides. The data favours a pre-collisional continental embayment model (Scott et al., 2010), suggesting the tectonic evolution of the Arctic Uralides and South Kara Seach are intimately linked.