Devonian-Permian sedimentary basins and paleogeography of the Eastern Russian Arctic: An overview

The Arctic basins attract broad international interest because of the region's potentially significant undiscovered hydrocarbon resources. The Russian High Arctic is mostly represented by broad shelves, with a few wells drilled only in its western part (Kara and Barents shelves). This contribution provides an overview of the geological setting, stratigraphy, paleogeography, and tectono-sedimentary evolution of the middle-late Paleozoic basins of the Eastern Russian Arctic, including: Severnaya Zemlya, the New Siberian Islands, northern Siberia, the Taimyr and Chukotka peninsulas, and Wrangel Island. Reconstructing the geological evolution of the Eastern Russian Arctic during the middle-late Paleozoic is very difficult because the region was overprinted by a number of late Paleozoic to early Mesozoic tectonic events.