Upper Jurassic Rock Depositional Settings in the Baidar Valley and Evolution of the Crimean Carbonate Platform

Abstract

The paper presents results of the lithological study of Upper Jurassic limestones, flyschoids and limestone breccias on the southern side of the Baidar Valley in the Crimean Mountains. Study of the microfacies revealed that the limestones are represented by deposits on lagoons, platform edge shoals, reefs, and forereef aprons on the carbonate platform slope. Flyschoids include deposits in the distributive turbidite channels and hemipelagic sediments in the deep-water part of the basin. Limestone breccias were formed by gravitation flows on the carbonate platform toe-of-slope and slope. The presence of gravitation deposits in the Upper Jurassic carbonate complexes of the Crimean Mountains can testify to the primary clinoform structure of this sedimentary sequence. Comparison of the obtained sedimentological data made it possible to reconstruct the facies model of the Crimean carbonate platform and main episodes of its formation. Development of the carbonate shelf was related to two transgressive-regressive cycles. A dome-shaped reef was formed away from the coast at the initial (Oxfordian) stage. The carbonate platform was formed at the early Kimmeridgian lowstand stage when sediments were deposited in the internal part of the platform adjacent to land. In the late Kimmeridgian and early Tithonian, configuration of the carbonate platform profile resembled a distally steepened ramp, and its active progradation and shelf expansion took place in the course of transgression. Regression in the late Tithonian–early Berriasian led to regressive transformation of the ramp into platform with a flattened shallow-water shelf. Tectonic deformations at the Jurassic/Cretaceous transition promoted the formation of megabreccias on the carbonate platform foreslope. The tectonically reworked rock sequence of the “extinct” carbonate platform was overlapped transgressively by the upper Berriasian or lower Valanginian, relatively deep-water deposits of the Cretaceous platform cover.