LITHOSPHERE, 2002, No. 16, p. 96

A complex of variegated terrigene deposits of the molassic formation of the Pripyat Trough comprising the Dudichy, Vystupovichy, Korenev, Mozyr, Kalinkovichy and Narovlia suites is a continuous series without regional breaks that had been accumulated within a single continental water basin. The Vystupovichy suite wedges out northward due to its lithological replacement by the Dudichy and Korenev sutes, but not washing out before the deposition of the Korenev suite. A local absence of the Dudichy suite from the sequence and of the Korenev suite in the crests of some cryptodiapirs and discordant bedding of the Korenev and Mozyr suites over the more ancient deposits were caused by the absence of sedimentation in a shallow basin within topographic highs, mainly in crests of rapidly growing salt uplifts. The absence of the Dudichy suite deposits in the periphery and discordant bedding of the Korenev suite over the more ancient rocks down to the basement was associated with the expansion of the sedimentary basin area. A regional break at the Permian and Triassic boundary within the East European Platform may be correlated with a large lacuna - regional and angular unconformity in the Dudichy suite bottom. Therefore, it would be reasonable to relate the unfossiliferous Dudichy and Vystupovichy suites, as well as the overlying paleontologically dated Korenev suite, to the Indian stage of the Lower Triassic, and to abandon a differentiation of Upper Permian deposits according to the decision of the Interdepartmental Stratigraphic Conference on the Triassic of the East European Platform (Saratov, 1979). The bottom of Triassic deposits should be traced at the base of the Upper Dudichy subsuite, as the Lower Dudichy subsuite is of Lower Permian age.

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