TRACE FOSSILS AND THE UPPER VENDIAN BOUNDARY IN THE SOUTHEASTERN WHITE SEA REGION

Abstract

Among numerous localities of Late Proterozoic (Vendian) fossilized soft-bodied organisms, the south-eastern White Sea region is the most informative one owing primarily to high taxonomic diversity of the biota and perfect preservation of its remains. The absence of paleontologically characterized Vendian–Cambrian boundary sections, a drawback of this region, hampers the correlation and restricts possibilities of paleontological studies. Based on lithological correlation between sections of the southeastern White Sea region and northwestern East European Platform, the existence of Cambrian sediments in the northeastern White Sea region was repeatedly suggested in the 1950s and 1960s.