the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
04 Feb 2021
04 Feb 2021
Paleozoic-Mesozoic thermal evolution along the East European Platform margin based on kerogen thermal maturity analysis combined with apatite and zircon low temperature thermochronology in NE Poland
- 1AGH University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Geology, Geophysics and Environmental Protection 30-059 Kraków, al. Mickiewicza 30, Poland
- 2Institute of Geological Sciences PAS, 31-002 Kraków, ul. Senacka 2, Poland
- 3Geoscience Centre, University of Göttingen, Goldschmidtstrasse 3, Göttingen D-37077, Germany
- 1AGH University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Geology, Geophysics and Environmental Protection 30-059 Kraków, al. Mickiewicza 30, Poland
- 2Institute of Geological Sciences PAS, 31-002 Kraków, ul. Senacka 2, Poland
- 3Geoscience Centre, University of Göttingen, Goldschmidtstrasse 3, Göttingen D-37077, Germany
Abstract. The Phanerozoic tectono-thermal evolution of the SW slope of the East European Platform (EEP) in Poland is reconstructed by means of thermal maturity, low temperature thermochronometry and thermal modelling. We provide a set of new thermochronometric data and integrate stratigraphic and thermal maturity information to constrain the burial and thermal history of sediments. Apatite fission track analysis (AFT) and zircon (U-Th)/He (ZHe) thermochronology have been carried out on samples of sandstones, bentonites, diabase and crystalline basement rocks collected from 17 boreholes located in central and NE Poland. They penetrated sedimentary cover of the EEP subdivided from the north to south into the Baltic, Podlasie and Lublin Basins. The average ZHe ages from Proterozoic basement rocks as well as Ordovician to Silurian bentonites and Cambrian to lower Carboniferous sandstones range from 848 ± 81 Ma to 255 ± 22 Ma with a single early Permian age of 288 Ma, corresponding to cooling after a thermal event. The remaining ZHe ages represent partial reset or source ages. The AFT ages of samples are dispersed in the range of 235.8 ± 17.3 (Middle Triassic) to 42.1 ± 11.1 (Paleogene) providing a record of Mesozoic and Cenozoic cooling. The highest frequency of the AFT ages is in the Jurassic and Early Cretaceous prior to Alpine basin inversion. Thermal maturity results are consistent with the SW-ward increase of the Palaeozoic and Mesozoic sediments thickness. An important break in a thermal maturity profile exists across the base Permian-Mesozoic unconformity. Thermal modelling showed that significant heating of Ediacaran to Carboniferous sedimentary successions occurred before the Permian with maximum paleotemperatures in the earliest and latest Carboniferous for Baltic-Podlasie and Lublin Basins, respectively. The results obtained suggest an important role of early Carboniferous uplift and exhumation at the SW margin of the EEP. The SW slope of the latter was afterward overridden in the Lublin Basin by the Variscan orogenic wedge. Its tectonic loading interrupted Carboniferous uplift and caused resumption of sedimentation in the late Viséan. Consequently, a thermal history of the Lublin Basin is different from that in the Podlasie and Baltic Basins, but similar to other sections of the Variscan foreland, characterised by maximum burial at the end of Carboniferous. The Mesozoic thermal history was characterised by gradual cooling from peak temperatures at the transition from Triassic to Jurassic due to decreasing heat flow. Burial caused maximum paleotemperatures in the SW part of the study area, where the EEP was covered by an extensive sedimentary pile. However, farther NE, due to low temperatures caused by shallow burial, the impact of fluids can be detected by VR, illite/smectite and thermochronological data.
Dariusz Botor et al.
Status: final response (author comments only)
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RC1: 'Comment on se-2021-8', Anonymous Referee #1, 05 Mar 2021
The manuscript presents an extensive study concerning the low temperature thermal evolution of the margin of the East European Platform. The new data include fission track on apatite using the external detector method, fission track measurements, U-Th/He dating on zircons. Data are integrated with stratigraphy from the boreholes, VR measurements, K-Ar dating, illite/smectite reflectance. Thermal modeling and T-t history for different regions are compiled.
In order to improve the manuscript several aspects are detailed below: Further suggestions are done directly on the PDF text.
- It is not mentioned in the Method in which laboratory fission track dating was done.
- The involvement and extent of fluid flow at the level of some of the stratigraphic levels should be treated with more caution presenting also alternative solutions which cannot be omitted at the present. Suggestions are given below and directly on the PDF text.
- I strongly suggest to insert on the map Fig. 1 and in table 3 previously FT dating already published by Srodon et al. 2013 and Botor et al 2019 (papers given below) and discuss the differences/similarities between published FT modeling results and present ones concerning the common investigated time interval/region.
´Srodo´n, J., Paszkowski, M., Drygant, D., Anczkiewicz, A., and Bana´s, M.: Thermal History of Lower Paleozoic Rocks on the Peri-Tornquist Margin of the East European Craton (Podolia, Ukraine) inferred from Combined XRD, K-Ar, and AFT Data. Clays and Clay Minerals 61, 107-132, https://doi.org/10.1346/CCMN.2013.0610209, 2013.
Botor, D., Golonka, J., Anczkiewicz, A. A., Dunkl, I., Papiernik, B., ZajaËc, J., and Guzy, P.: Burial and thermal history of the Lower Paleozoic petroleum source rocks in the SW margin of the East European Craton (Poland). Annales Societatis Geologorum Poloniae, 89, 31-62, https://doi.org/10.14241/asgp.2019.12, 2019a.
Specific aspects as suggested by the editorial for review structure are given below. In the revised version changes on the text and new paragraphs should be marked with a different color in order to track them.
- Does the paper address relevant scientific questions within the scope of SE?
Yes
- Does the paper present novel concepts, ideas, tools, or data?
U/He dating on zircons is new for the investigated area as well as the intergration with other data.
- Are substantial conclusions reached?
In order to have an overview for the different thermal evolution of tectonic blocks/regions I suggest inserting a simplified map in the middle of page and adding the thermal evolution for different regions around.
- Are the scientific methods and assumptions valid and clearly outlined?
- Are the results sufficient to support the interpretations and conclusions?
The repeated references to fluid flow in order to explain the difference vitrinit/illite-smectite thermometry are not well argumented. Maybe these are the limits of the two methods VR and illite-smectite, more precision cannot be achieved. A method is not wrong if it cannot go under a certain “standard deviation”. I suggest to model considering one of the methods, not making compromise of both or invoking fluid flow for discrepancies. New grown illite during fluid flow is a different task and a study which is for the moment not available.
- Is the description of experiments and calculations sufficiently complete and precise to allow their reproduction by fellow scientists (traceability of results)?
In order to make some plots the distribution of track lengths for each sample is necessary. Usually in studies not all track lengths are given. So it is at the level of other studies.
- Do the authors give proper credit to related work and clearly indicate their own new/original contribution?
Yes. It would be interesting to plot older Fission Track ages in the region as well on the map.
- Does the title clearly reflect the contents of the paper?
New are the Fission Track ages on apatite and the the U/He ages. The vitrinite data are from literature should be omitted from the title as other criteria are used as well for thermal modeling.
- Does the abstract provide a concise and complete summary?
Yes
- Is the overall presentation well structured and clear?
Improvements were already suggested, also directly on the PDF text.
- Is the language fluent and precise?
Yes
- Are mathematical formulae, symbols, abbreviations, and units correctly defined and used?
Yes
- Should any parts of the paper (text, formulae, figures, tables) be clarified, reduced, combined, or eliminated?
Suggestions available directly on the PDF text.
- Are the number and quality of references appropriate?
ok
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AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Dariusz Botor, 31 Mar 2021
Dr. Dariusz Botor
AGH University of Science and Technology, Kraków, Poland,
30/03/2021
Replay to Anonymous Reviewer 1
Thank you for all your corrections, comments, and suggestions regarding our manuscript. Since they are helpful and constructive, we will include them in a revised version of the paper. Our response to specific comments provided both in the review document and annotated manuscript are detailed below.
- Fission track dating was done at the Institute of Geological Sciences, Polish Academy of Sciences in Kraków (Poland). This information will be included in the ‘Methods’ chapter.
- The possible extent of fluid flow will be wider discussed in the text including alternative solutions. Concerning the latter, we already considered variation in the geothermal gradient through time while postulating the influence of advective heat transfer. Therefore, we refer to paleotemperatures in the text as a proxy of paleothermal gradient. The interpretation assuming short‐lasting pulses of potassium‐bearing hot fluids that effectively promote illitization in porous rocks is presented in a recent paper by Derkowski et al. (2021). We cite and use this interpretation since reporting a full set of arguments presented by Derkowski (2021) exceeds the scope of our study. We agree that the gap between the VR- and illite/smectite-derived paleotemperatures might be the effect of contamination by detrital illite. This remains an option that cannot be entirely excluded. However, in the case of detrital illite the results should be highly incoherent, whereas in the Tłuszcz IG-1 and other studied boreholes the VR-derived paleotemperatures are consistently lower than those calculated from illite/smectite data.
- A new figure is drafted that shows previous FT dating by Środoń et al. (2013) and Botor et al. (2019) as well as some other results from the adjacent areas. Simplified results are presented jointly with the locality of sampling. The figure provides a background for the extended discussion of results.
- We are going to make several changes to the remaining figures:
- Figure A1 will be merged with A2 and redrafted to show the distribution of track lengths for each sample.
- The position of the Teisseyre-Tornquist Zone, Caledonian Deformation Front and Variscan Deformation Front will be shown in Figure 2.
- Lettering will be increased in Figures 3 and 5.
- A reference to the map by Pożaryski and Dembowski (1983) will be added to the caption of Figure 14.
- The title will be shortened as recommended.
- All recommended changes to the tables format will be implemented.
- Short information is going to be supplemented to ‘Geological setting’ how the position of the Teisseyre-Tornquist Zone and Caledonian Deformation Front were determined.
- We are going to include remaining corrections that are marked directly on the annotated manuscript.
Sincerely,
Dariusz Botor
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RC2: 'Comment on se-2021-8', Anonymous Referee #2, 30 Mar 2021
Review for
Title: Paleozoic-Mesozoic thermal evolution along the East European Platform margin based on kerogen thermal maturity analysis combined with apatite and zircon low temperature thermochronology in NE Poland
Author(s): Dariusz Botor et al.
MS No.: se-2021-8
MS type: Research article----
The submitted manuscript by Botor et al. represents an interesting and, to some extent, an essential contribution to thermal history reconstructions performed for the borehole-derived samples from Eastern Poland. The project scale (i.e., number of samples analyzed) and used multi-tool approach defines this study as an important contribution to the general understanding of Palaeozoic and Mesozoic thermal evolution of intracontinental setting within Central Europe. The authors presented a set of new AFT (21) and ZHe (40) dating results, which have been combined with thermal maturity (e.g., VR) and stratigraphic data. Since the study area is mainly covered with the Cenozoic strata, using borehole samples was indispensable for this study, and authors processed an extensive set of samples, both for sedimentary and crystalline complexes. Based on the results obtained and literature data, the authors performed thermal modelling, concluding a crucial role of an early Carboniferous burial and exhumation in the East European Platform thermal evolution.
Submitted work is a well-written and comprehensive study, at the scale never before presented for the research area, therefore after minor corrections (listed below), it should be considered for publication.
Nevertheless, on this occasion, some remarks for authors' considerations, followed by figures and table comments and secondary technical issues, should be emphasized.
Specific comments
- Since all the apatite fission-track data reported in the text are based on borehole samples, the reader might expect that the authors would at least refer to and discuss their results in the context of some known issues regarding the application of low-temperature thermochronometry to the deep borehole samples. It includes i.a., defects for fission-track dating reported by Wauschkuhn et al. (2015 and references therein).
- Throughout the text, any information on how the length of the confined tracks have been presented (c-axis corrected or not) could hardly be found. This information must be declared in the text since the effect of bias in length distribution might be a significant component (see Ketcham et al., 2007).
- It is confusing to use the capital letters through the text, tables, and figures for the epochs/series names (e.g., Table 1: Triassic lower; Jurassic Middle). This needs to be clarified and homogenized throughout the manuscript following the ICS recommendations.
- In table 2, many reported Zr grains contain inclusions. Does it possibly have any influence on the reported ZHe ages?
- Szewczyk & Gientka (2009) reported some heat flow density perturbations for the NE Poland reaching up to 2000 m depth, so in the range of many of the analyzed borehole samples. In this context, please better explain which present-day temperatures (e.g., line 491) do you present in your text and use for thermal modeling.
Comments to figures and tables
Fig.1
This figure does not contain scale and geographical coordinates; hence it should not be termed a ‘map’; please adjust it accordingly.
Please also add to the figure caption word ‘borehole’ to have ‘the location of borehole samples’ to avoid confusion.
Fig.2
Some abbreviations used seem not to fit its meaning, for example: Pcm – Paleoproterozoic, which fits Precambrian better; please adjust it accordingly. On the chronostratigraphic abbreviations list, Carboniferous is omitted (there is C-Cambrian instead).
Fig.3
Please name the stratigraphic units by using only singular forms, not plural, neither mixed.
Fig.4
On the map, the EEC acronym is used (East European Craton), but there is EEP (EE Platform) in the caption.
Fig.6
Please stay uniform using only one English language standard (‘Palaezoic’ vs. ‘paleotemperature‘ (ae vs. e). Please scan the whole text to verify the spelling.
Fig.13
There are some issues that should be explained regarding the thermal modeling performed. Does it exist any information regarding the age of detrital zircon grains? It would be helpful to use it when designing a modeling strategy.
Please add to the models basic information, including GOF, modeled vs. measured ages and lengths, youngest grains, horizontal lines for APAZ, ZHePRZ zones.
Fig.14
This figure does not contain scale and geographical coordinates; hence it should not be termed a ‘map’; please adjust it accordingly.
Yellow asterisk – maybe better would be ‘Wells with thermal models…’ ?
Fig. A1
Please add a number of apatite grains analyzed for each radial plot (n=XX)
Table 1
Some stratigraphic units and lithologies listed in the table do not have correct English names (i.a., Proterozoik; granitoide).
Table 4
Please see the comment above.
Technical corrections
There are text and graphical elements listed below which need some minor corrections.
Line 30: ‘These basins form an extensive platform cover resting upon the SW slope of the East European Craton, comprising Paleoproterozoic to Mesoproterozoic crystalline basement.’ This sentence would benefit from a relevant literature reference
Lines 42-45: this sentence is a direct repetition of the paper abstract and should be discarded
Line 51: ‘Phanerozoic’ – some of reported ZHe ages go far beyond Phanerozoic timescale. Furthermore, this section's last sentence (lines 51-53) fits much better into Abstract than Introduction
Line 58: you mention in the text a geological unit ‘West European Palaeozoic Platform’ and refer the reader to Fig.1, however on this figure, no such a unit exists
Lines 99-100: This sentence would benefit from a relevant literature reference
Line 131: please add some additional explanation about the basis of Poprawa’s (2010) conclusions regarding peak temperatures
Line 141: ‘thermochronology’ should be replaced by ‘analyses’
Line 143: should be ‘Farley (2002)’ instead of ‘(Farley, 2002)
Lines 170-171: what about the c-axis angle correction for confined tracks measurements?
Line 196: at which depth was this temperature measured?
Lines 238-242: please add information about c-axis angle correction (see comment above)
Lines 253-254: It sounds like a conclusion or plausible explanation here; please be more specific by adding relevant arguments.
Line 259: AFTA – do you explain anywhere before in the text this acronym?
Line 261: ‘fluid flow’ explanation would benefit from i.e., relevant citation
Line 313: should be ‘fission track lengths distribution’
Line 317: should be ‘TÅuszcz’
Line 351: basing on only 3 apatite grains might not give a meaningful result from the methodological point of view; therefore, if you’d like to use it still, please clarify this issue and explain possible shortcomings
Line 362: which kind of thermal modeling has been used (forward, inverse?)
Line 448: does this ‘Mesozoic geothermal gradient’ has been independently confirmed
Lines 566-567: how does Variscan orogeny can cause erosion? In what sense?
Lines 582-588: Dniepr-Donets-Donbas Rift does not exist on any of your maps, so it might be hard for the reader to get an idea about logical (geographical) connection with your research area
Line 600: Pripyat Trough does not exist on any of your maps, so it might be hard for the reader to get an idea about logical (geographical) connection with your research area
Lines 644-648: This conclusion remains speculative due to no solid arguments for the heat transfer change
References cited:
Ketcham R.A., Carter A., Donelick R.A., Barbarand J., Hurford A.J. (2017) Improved measurement of ï¬ssion track annealing in apatite using c-axis projection. American Mineralogist 92, 789-798.
Szewczyk J., Gientka D. (2009) Terrestrial heat flow density in Poland — a new approach. Geological Quarterly 53(1):125–140.
Wauschkuhn B., Jonckheere R., Ratschbacher L. (2015) The KTB apatite ï¬ssion-track proï¬les: Building on a ï¬rm foundation? Geochim Cosmochim Acta 167:27–62.
Dariusz Botor et al.
Dariusz Botor et al.
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