Impact of climatic step-changes on source-to-sink systems: Petrographic changes across the Permian-Triassic changes on the Finnmark Platform, Barents Sea, N Norway

The emplacement of the Siberian Traps Large Igneous Province around the Permian–Triassic boundary significantly affected both climate and depositional environments across the world. Known long term consequences of this event are (I) global warming, (II) increased continental weathering, (III) oceanic stagnation and acidification and (IV) mass extinction. These effects have the potential to strongly alter signals from source-to-sink systems in terms of petrography, sediment volumes and geochemistry. The Barents Sea Basin is an excellent area to investigate the response of source-to-sink systems to such climatic changes because it contains a continuous record of sediments deposited before, during and after the Permian-Triassic event, and because this interval is sampled in several exploration wells.

The goal of this project is to investigate how the Triassic climatic changes were expressed in source-to-sink systems, mainly using techniques such as facies analysis, petrograpy, mudstone geochemistry and sediment volumes. Herein we present preliminary results mainly from sandstone petrology. On the Finnmark Plattform, the upper Permian strata of the Røye Formation contains spiculitic mudstones and limestones with sparse sandstones. These are overlain by mudstones, interbedded turbidites and prograding deltas of the Lower Triassic. In order to determine how the signal from the catchment changed to the great climatic changes, it is of high importance to examine changes within provenance and sediment volumes across the P-T boundary.

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