Upper Silurian stratigraphy of Podolia revisited: carbon isotopes, bentonites and biostratigraphy

Abstract

Nowadays carbon isotopes and bentonites have become new authorities in stratigraphy besides traditional biostratigraphy. Three positive carbon isotope excursions have been identified in the Upper Silurian of Podolia: the mid-Ludfordian excursion, the late Přídolí excursion at the Trubchyn/Dzvenygorod junction and the SIDE at the Silurian–Devonian boundary. Fourteen bentonite beds are known from this upper Ludlow–Přídolí interval. Some of these are better studied and are helpful for correlation of sections. Using the stage slices as a framework, we show that the Přídolí can be subdivided into “natural” stage rank units based on the integrated bio-, litho- and chemostratigraphy.

Keywords::

• stratigraphy
• bentonites
• carbon isotopes
• chitinozoans
• Upper Silurian
• Podolia

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to both reviewers E. Jarochowska and M. Melchin for useful comments that considerably aided to improve the manuscript. We thank G. Baranov for help with computer graphics and A. Noor for linguistic corrections. The study was partly supported by the Estonian Research Council (projects SF0140020s08, SF140016s09 and grant ETF8182) and the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences (project 0112U001459), connected with an Agreement about co-operation of the Ukrainian and Estonian academies of sciences. This report is a contribution to the IGCP project 591.