Facies and Hydroclimatic Reconstructions of Salt Formation Conditions in the Verkhnekamsk Deposit

Abstract The study of salt varve structure in the Verkhnekamsk deposit revealed that the Verkhnekamsk halogenic basin was characterized in the Kungurian by stable hydroclimatic conditions during the entire salt precipitation period. The identified salt types suggest that salt was accumulated in the spring-summer only under deep hypolimnetic conditions at the basin bottom (drusy and drusy-and-sparry gray and white halitites, drusy and dendritic carnallitites). In the cooler autumn-winter period, salt was deposited at any basin depth (cumulative halite, sylvite, carnallite, polygranular crusts of carnallite). The median ratio of thicknesses of the bottom and cumulative salts indicates the predominance of summer precipitation over the winter variety, and their single change within the varve indicates a warm monomictic hydrodynamic setting of the Verkhnekamsk salt basin.