SEASHORE AND OFFSHORE AMBER­SUCCINITE PLACERS IN UKRAINE

Abstract

The article speaks about the key influence of the sea basin on the formation of amber­succinite as a mineral and its deposits as the first intermediate collectors. The transformation of biogenic­sedimentary deposits of prototypical amber into succinite occurred only in the sea with glauconite environment of Kyiv, Obukhov and Mezhyhir sea basins, which surrounded the Ukrainian shield in the end of the middle and late Eocene — early Oligocene. These basins were part of an unique palaeo­strait that connected the tropical Tethys ocean in the south­east and the North Atlantic in the north­west. And only within this palaeo­aquatic area the most valuable type of fossil resins was formed — amber­succinite. Spatially it covers the Baltic­Dnieper province of amber­succinite, which includes the «amber» countries of Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus and Ukraine in the south­east. Based on the lithofacial and palaeo­geological analysis of the Eocene­Oligocene marine sediments (Baltic­Dnieper province) and of the primary sources of the deposits eroded in the Eocene­Oligocene, the authors discovered the age­related and genetic dependence of the amber­succinite content in the marine deposits. Intensive late Eocene erosion of the coal part of the Buchak suite resulted in an accumulation of a huge mass of pro­toamber in the coastal part of the Obukhov Sea basin. Sea currents transported the protoamber to dif­ferent parts of the seabed, including remote parts of the shelf, outside the turbulence area. The latter is associated with unique (up to 80 % of the world’s reserves) industrial deposits of the amber­succinite of the Upper Eocene Prussian suite in Sambia in the village of Yantarniy, which is a stratigraphic analogue of the Obukhov suite of Ukraine. In Ukraine, this type of deposits has not yet been discov­ered and have never been predicted. Based on the analysis of the geological structure and distribution of marine Eocene­Oligocene sediments, as well as on the palaeohydrological grid of the Ukrainian Shield and its slopes in the Mesozoic and Cenozoic, and on the numerous findings of amber­succinite, the authors consider the territory of the eastern and southeastern margins of the Ukrainian Shield (Dnieper Basin) to be perspective for the exploration of large industrial deposits of amber­succinite in the Upper Eocene sediments of the Obukhov suite.

Keywords

• amber marine placers
• palaeoaquatic areas
• eocene and oligocene sediments
• amber
• succinite
• sambia
• marine stage of resin fossilization