New finds of middle-upper Devonian radiolarians in the Rudnyi Altai region

Neverovsky Palaeoreef and Associated Deep-Marine Facies: High-Value Late Devonian Geoheritage from the Rudny Altai

“…A member of siltstones and radiolarites with a few interlayers of conglomerates bearing fossiliferous limestone clasts in shaly matrix and a total thickness of 50 m is represented at this geosite. Fossils include radiolarians, which are very helpful for age determination [46]; brachiopods, corals, ostracods, and trilobites were also found in this section. The exposed deposits were formed in a deepmarine environment.…”

“…First of all, the proposed geosites are characterized geologically. The related information was collected in the field and also from some relevant literature sources [46][47][48][49]. The descriptive properties (Table 1) were analyzed qualitatively.…”

“…The study area is dominated by Middle-Upper Devonian volcanosedimentary deposits with a total thickness of 3500 m (Figure 2). Their litho-and biostratigraphy were established by Afanas'eva et al [46], Elkin [47], Gutak and Rodygin [48], and Murzin et al [49], who used, particularly, brachiopods, conodonts, and radiolarians to determine the exact age of the respective deposits. The local stratigraphical sequence includes Devonian deposits of the Davydovskaya Formation (Middle Devonian), the Kamenevskaya Formation (upper Givetian-Frasnian), and the Pikhtovskaya Formation (Famennian) (Figure 3).…”

“…However, the only scientific utility seems to be international (Table 3). At least, the previous studies [46,48] demonstrated that the Late Devonian sequence of the study area can be important for long-distance stratigraphical correlations and palaeontological discoveries. The field examination of outcrops and the revision of the published information imply that the potential for new high-class research remains high.…”