Regressive-transgressive cyclothem with facies record of the re-flooding window in the Late Silurian carbonate succession (Podolia, Ukraine)

Abstract

The term “re-flooding window” was recently proposed as a time-interval connected with the transgressive stage of present day peri-reefal development. In the analysis presented here, a fossil record of a re-flooding window has been recognized. Nine Late Silurian carbonate sections exposed on the banks of the Dnister River in Podolia (Ukraine) have been correlated base on bed-by-bed microfacies analysis and spectral gamma ray (SGR) measurements. Correlated were sections representing settings ranging from the inner part of a shallow-water carbonate platform to its slope, through an organic buildup. The reconstructed depositional scenario has been divided into six development stages, with the first three representing a regressive interval and the latter three a transgressive interval of the basin’s history. The re-flooding window has been identified at the beginning of a transgressive part of the succession. Surprisingly, it is characterized by an extremely fast growth of a shallow, tide-dominated platform and by deposition of calciturbiditic layers in a more basinal area. The interpreted succession is a small-scale model illustrating the reaction of carbonate depositional sub-environments to sea level changes and determining the facies position of the stromatoporoid buildups within the facies pattern on a Silurian shelf. The use of SGR analyses in shallow water, partly high-energy, carbonate facies, both for correlation purposes and for identifying depositional systems, is a relatively new method, and thus can serve as a reference for other studies of similar facies assortment.