Late orogenic, large-scale rotations in the Tien Shan and adjacent mobile belts in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan

Most of Kazakhstan belongs to the central part of the Eurasian Paleozoic mobile belts for which previously proposed tectonic scenarios have been rather disparate. Of particular interest is the origin of strongly curved Middle and Late Paleozoic volcanic belts of island-arc and Andean-arc affinities that dominate the structure of Kazakhstan. We undertook a paleomagnetic study of Carboniferous to Upper Permian volcanics and sediments from several localities in the Ili River basin between the Tien Shan and the Junggar–Alatau ranges in southeast Kazakhstan. Our main goal was to investigate the Permian kinematic evolution of these belts, particularly in terms of rotations about vertical axes, in the hope of deciphering the dynamics that played a role during the latest Paleozoic deformation in this area. This deformation, in turn, can then be related to the amalgamation of this area with Baltica, Siberia, and Tarim in the expanding Eurasian supercontinent. Thermal demagnetization revealed that most Permian rocks retained a pretilting and likely primary component, which is of reversed polarity at three localities and normal at the fourth. In contrast, most Carboniferous rocks are dominated by postfolding reversed overprints of probably “mid-Permian” age, whereas presumably primary components are isolated from a few sites at two localities. Mean inclinations of primary components generally agree with coeval reference values extrapolated from Baltica, whereas declinations from primary as well as secondary components are deflected counterclockwise (ccw) by up to  90°. Such ccw rotated directions have previously also been observed in other Tien Shan sampling areas and in the adjacent Tarim Block to the south. However, two other areas in Kazakhstan show clockwise (cw) rotations of Permian magnetization directions. One area is located in the Kendyktas block about 300 km to the west of the Ili River valley, and the other is found in the Chingiz Range, to the north of Lake Balkhash and about 400 km to the north of the Ili River valley. The timing of the ccw as well as cw rotations is clearly later than the disappearance of any marine basins from northern Tarim, the Tien Shan and eastern Kazakhstan, so that the rotations cannot be attributed to island-arc or Andean-margin plate settings — instead we attribute the rotations to large-scale, east–west (present-day coordinates), sinistral wrenching in an intracontinental setting, related to convergence between Siberia and Baltica, as recently proposed by Natal'in and Şengör [Natal'in, B.A., and Şengör, A.M.C., 2005. Late Palaeozoic to Triassic evolution of the Turan and Scythian platforms: the pre-history of the palaeo-Tethyan closure, Tectonophysics, 404, 175–202.]. Our previous work in the Chingiz and North Tien Shan areas on Ordovician and Silurian rocks suggested relative rotations of  180°, whereas the Permian declination differences are of the order of 90° between the two areas. Thus, we assume that about 50% of the total post-Ordovician rotations are of pre-Late Permian age, with the other half of Late Permian–earliest Mesozoic age. The pre-Late Permian rotations are likely related to oroclinal bending during plate boundary evolution in a supra-subduction setting, given the calc-alkaline character of nearly all of the pre-Late Permian volcanics in the strongly curved belts.     

Precambrian microcontinents of the Ural-Mongolian Belt: New paleomagnetic and geochronological data

The knowledge on the early stages of evolution of the Ural-Mongolian Belt (UMB) (Late Neoproterozoic-Cambrian) is a key for understanding of its evolution in the Paleozoic. Unfortunately, this stage remains poorly studied. The tectonic reconstructions of the UMB for this time primarily depend on the views on the kinematics and tectonic evolution of numerous sialic massifs with Precambrian basement in the structure of the Tien Shan, Kazakhstan, Altai, and Mongolia. At present, the concept of the origin of these massifs is largely based on the lithostratigraphic similarity of the Neoproterozoic and Lower Paleozoic sections of the Tarim, South China, and Siberian platforms with coeval sections of Precambrian massifs within the UMB. New paleomagnetic and geochronological data can serve as additional sources of information on the origin and paleotectonic position of the microcontinents. In this paper, we present new isotopic datings and a new paleomagnetic determination for the Neoproterozoic volcanic rocks of the Zabhan Formation from the Baydrag microcontinent in central Mongolia. It is established that 805−770 Ma ago (U-Pb LA-MC-ICP-MS age of zircon) the Baydrag microcontinent was situated at a latitude of 47 ± 14° in the Northern or Southern hemisphere. These data provide new insights into the possible origin of the Precambrian micro-continents in the UMB. Analysis of paleomagnetic data and comparison of the age of the basement beneath various plates allow us to state rather confidently that ∼800 Ma ago the micro-continents of the UMB belonged to one of the North Rodinian plates: Indian, Tarim, or South China; their Australian origin is less probable.     

Trace elements in zircon from rocks of the Katugin rare-metal deposit

The Katugin deposit of economic Ta, Nb, Zr, U, REE, Y, and cryolite (Na₃AlF₆) ores is located in the Kalar district of the Chita region and classified as unique in Nb, Ta, and Y reserves hosted in rare-metal alkali granite. The distribution of trace elements (including REE) in zircon was studied for ore-bearing arfvedsonite–aegirine, biotite–riebeckite rocks, and zones of late recrystallization with nodular zircon clusters. The outer rims and marginal zones of zircon grains are depleted in almost all trace elements except for hafnium as compared with cores and central zones. Compositional features of zircon cores indicate their magmatic origin and do not prove metasomatic nature of the deposit. The similar REE patterns of zircon rims and cores, as well as other attributes assume postmagmatic or metamorphic origin of the rims.     

Paleozoic northward drift of the North Tien Shan (Central Asia) as revealed by Ordovician and Carboniferous paleomagnetism

Three new Middle–Late Ordovician and two new Early Carboniferous paleomagnetic poles have been obtained from the North Tien Shan Zone (NTZ) of the Ural–Mongol belt in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. Paleolatitudes for the Carboniferous are unambiguously northerly and average 15.5°N, whereas the Ordovician paleolatitudes (6°, 9°, and 9°) are inferred to be southerly, given that a very large (180°) rotation of the NTZ would be necessary during the middle Paleozoic if the other polarity option was chosen. Thus, the NTZ drifted northward during much of the Paleozoic; east–west drift cannot be determined, as is well known, from paleomagnetic data. In addition, detailed thermal demagnetization analysis reveals two overprints, one of recent age and the other of Permian age, which is a time of strong deformation in the NTZ. The paleolatitude of the combined Permian overprint is 30.5+2°N. The paleolatitudes collectively track those predicted for the area by extrapolation from Baltica very well, but are different from those of Siberia for Ordovician times. This finding is compatible with Sengör and Natal'in's [Sengör, A.M.C., Natal'in, B.A., 1996. Paleotectonics of Asia: fragments of a synthesis. In: Yin A., Harrison, M. (Eds.), The Tectonic Evolution of Asia. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, pp. 486–640] model of tectonic evolution of the Ural–Mongol belt and disagrees with the models of other researchers. Declinations of the Ordovician and Early Carboniferous results range from northwesterly to northeasterly, and are clearly affected by local relative rotations, which seem characteristic for the entire NTZ, because the Permian overprint declinations also show such a spread. Apparently, the important latest Paleozoic–Triassic deformation involved shear zone-related rotations as well as folding and significant granitic intrusions.     

北美内陆西部白垩纪脊椎动物生物年代学

北美西部内陆白垩纪的脊椎动物生物年代学的研究始于19世纪90年代。前人建议的期,即陆生脊椎动物"期"或陆生哺乳动物"期"名已过十二个,但其中具有精确的定义者甚少,仅有少量的建议受到广泛认可和使用。本文定义或重新定义了10个陆生脊椎动物"期",包括了西部内陆从最老至最新的全部白垩纪—Comobluffian期(～提塘期至欧特里沃期)、Buffalogapian期(～巴列姆期至早阿普特期)、Cashenranchian期(～早阿普特期至晚阿尔布期)、Mussentuchian期(～晚阿尔布期至塞诺曼期)、Fencelakean期(土伦期至晚塞农期)、Aquilan期(～晚塞农期至早坎潘期)、Judithian期(～中坎潘期)、Kirtlandian期(～晚坎潘期)、Edmontonian期(～坎潘期末期至早马斯特里赫特期)以及Lancian期(～早马斯特里赫特期晚期)。每一个"期"的开始由一种恐龙或哺乳动物种类的首现来定义,而其结束由后续的"期"的开始来定义。这样定义的脊椎动物生物年代代表了完整的白垩纪时间表。但有些时间段(尤其是Neocomian(尼欧克姆期)的大部分以及部分"中"白垩世的一部分)缺乏足够的脊椎动物化石特征。这些白垩纪陆生脊椎动物"期"构成了一个能使北美西部内陆的脊椎动物的演化历史得以序和解释年代表。     

New paleomagnetic data on baltica based on upper ediacaran deposits on the western slope of the Middle Urals

The latest concepts about the Earth’s paleogeography for the period of 700–500 million years are quite contradictory. Reliable paleomagnetic data are quite scarce for the Ediacaran-Cambrian of the majority of continental plates, which means that making any reliable global paleogeographic and paleotectonic reconstructions is impossible. According to various authors, Baltica within this time, for example, could have been located at any latitudes from the South Pole to the equator. Making correct reconstructions requires new paleomagnetic data; however, almost all objects that are applicable for such studies within Baltica have already been studied. A possible solution is to study the deformed margins of the plate, in particular, the western megazone of the Middle Urals, where the lower and upper Ediacaran volcanogenic-sedimentary and sedimentary sections are known within the Kvarkushsko-Kamennogorskii anticlinorium [1, 2] (Fig. 1). This paper presents the first paleomagnetic results obtained for the sedimentary rocks of the Upper Ediacaran Chernokamenskaya suite. They are consistent with the group of six poles of the same age [3–7], by which Baltica was located at the subequatorial latitudes at the end of the Educarian.