Late Palaeozoic to Triassic evolution of the Turan and Scythian platforms: The pre-history of the Palaeo-Tethyan closure

A number of en échelon-arranged, southwest-facing arc fragments of Palaeozoic to Jurassic ages, sandwiched between two fairly straight east-northeast trending boundaries, constitute the basement of the Scythian and the Turan platforms located between the Laurasian and Tethyside units. They have until now largely escaped detection owing to extensive Jurassic and younger cover and the inaccessibility of the subsurface data to the international geological community. These units are separated from one another by linear/gently-curved faults of great length and steep dip. Those that are exposed show evidence of strike-slip motion. The arc units originally constituted parts of a single “Silk Road Arc” located somewhere south of the present-day central Asia for much of the Palaeozoic, although by the late Carboniferous they had been united into a continental margin arc south of the Tarim basin and equivalent units to the west and east. They were stacked into their present places in northern Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Caucasus and the northern Black Sea by large-scale, right-lateral strike-slip coastwise transport along arc-slicing and arc-shaving strike-slip faults in the Triassic and medial Jurassic simultaneously with the subductive elimination of Palaeo-Tethys. This gigantic dextral zone (“the Silk Road transpression”) was a trans-Eurasian structure and was active simultaneously with another, similar system, the Gornostaev keirogen and greatly distorted Eurasia. The late Palaeozoic to Jurassic internal deformation of the Dniepr–Donets aulacogen was also a part of the dextral strain in southern Europe. When the emplacement of the Scythian and Turan units was completed, the elimination of Palaeo-Tethys had also ended and Neo-Tethyan arcs were constructed atop their ruins, mostly across their southern parts. The western end of the great dextral zone that emplaced the Turan and Scythian units horsetails just east of north Dobrudja and a small component goes along the Tornquist–Teisseyre lineament.     

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1674987113001382

The area from the Greater Caucasus to the southeast Turkey is characteri：;.ed and shaped by several major continental blocks. These are Scythian Platform, Pontian-Transcaucasu.,; Continent-Arc System （PTCAS）, the Anatolian-lranian and the Arabian Platforms. The aim of this paper is to define these continental blocks and describe and also compare their boundary relationships along the suture zones. The Scythian Platform displays the evidence of the Hercynian and Alpine orogens. This platform is separated from the PTCAS by the Greater Caucasus Suture Zone. The incipient collision began along this suture zone before middle-late Carboniferous whereas the final collision occurred before Oligocene. The PTCAS can be divided into four structural units： （1） the Georgian Block - northern part of the Pontian-Transcaucasian island-arc, （2） the southern and eastern Black Sea Coast-Adjara-Trialeti Unit, （3） the Artvin-Bolnisi Unit, comprising the northern part of the southern Transcaucasus, and （4） the Imbricated Bayburt-Garabagh Unit. The PTCAS could be separated from the Anatolian Iranian Platform by the North Anatolian-Lesser Caucasus Suture （NALCS） zone. The initial collision was developed in this suture zone during Senonian-early Eocene and final collision before middle Eocene or Oligocene-Miocene. The Anatolian-lranian Platform （AIP） is made up of the Tauride Platform and its metamorphic equivalents together with Iranian Platform. It could be separated from the Arabian Platform by the Southeastern Anatolian Suture （SEAS） zone. The collision ended before late Miocene along this suture zone. The southernmost continental block of the geotraverse is the Arabian Platform, which constitutes the northern part of the Arabian-African Plate. This platform includes a sequence from the Precambrian felsic volcanic and clastic rocks to the Campanian-early Maastrichtian fiyschoidal clastics. All the suture zones include MORB and SSZ-types ophiolites in different ages. However, the ages of the suture     

Newly Discovered Fish Faunas from the Early Triassic, Karoo Basin, South Africa, and their Correlative Implications

Recent collecting in exposures of the lowermost Burgersdorp Formation (Beaufort Group), of the Karoo Basin of South Africa, has revealed a previously unknown fish fauna from the Early Triassic (Scythian), lowermost Cynognathus Assemblage Zone (CAZ), which forms an important component of the total vertebrate assemblage. The newly discovered fish material includes lungfish, saurichthyids, and a large microfauna that includes numerous isolated chondrichthyan teeth, two fin spine fragments, and actinopterygian scales and teeth. The latest fish finds, together with the lowermost Cynognathus Assemblage Zone vertebrate faunas, make this Karoo Basin Assemblage Zone one of the most diverse Early Triassic faunal assemblages, comparable in faunal diversity to those from the Czatkowice Formation (Poland) and the Arcadia Formation (Australia). The presence of the lungfish Ptychoceratodus phillipsi in the early Middle Triassic Cynognathus Assemblage Zone (Subzone B), and in the underlying latest Early Triassic Cynognathus Assemblage Zone (Subzone A), indicates that these lungfish could serve as range index fossils within the CAZ, and thus are potentially useful biostratigraphic markers across the Early-Middle Triassic boundary. Furthermore the ‘new’ fish fauna provides a vital marine realm link in particular with the faunas of Madagascar and Australia, that is unavailable using the tetrapod faunal elements of the lower CAZ.     

欧洲大高加索厄尔布鲁斯山的形成与演化①

厄尔布鲁斯山位于土耳其板块俯冲至西徐亚板块之下而形成 的大高加索弧形构造带的弧顶部位,本身为晚更新世和全新世两个火山口组成的复式火山锥 。厄尔布鲁斯山隆升过程和机制可划分为4个阶段中生代板块俯冲形成大高加索相对隆起 区;新生代早期板块碰撞使大高加索成为强烈隆起区;新生代晚期发育了厄尔布鲁斯复式火 山锥,并使之成为欧洲最高峰;许多迹象表明,厄尔布鲁斯火山现代并未熄灭,厄尔布鲁斯 山以10 mm/a的速度继续隆升。     

The evolution of the southern margin of the East European Craton based on seismic and potential field data

This paper presents an integrated geophysical study of the southern margin of the East European Craton (EEC) in the Karpinksy Swell-North Caucasus area. It presents new interpretations of deep refraction and wide-angle reflection “deep seismic sounding” (DSS) data as well as conventional seismic and CDP profiling and new analyses of potential field data, including three-dimensional gravity and magnetic modelling. An integrated model of the physical properties and structure of the Earth's crust and, partially, upper mantle displays distinct features that are related to tectonic history of the study area. The Voronezh Massif (VM), the Ukrainian Shield and Rostov Dome (RD) of the EEC as well as the Donbas Foldbelt (DF), Karpinsky Swell (KS), Scythian Plate (SP) and Precaspian Basin (PCB) constitute the geodynamic ensemble that developed on the southern margin of the continent Baltica. There proposed evolutionary model comprises a stage of rifting during the middle to late Devonian, post-rift extension and subsidence during Carboniferous–early Permian times (synchronous with and related to the southward displacement of the Rostov Dome and extension in a palaeo-Scythian back-arc basin), and subsequent Mesozoic and younger evolution. A pre-Ordovician, possibly Riphean (?), mafic magmatic complex is inferred on a near vertical reflection seismic cross-section through the western portion of the Astrakhan Dome in the southwest part of the Precaspian Basin. This complex combined with evidence of a subducting slab in the upper mantle imply the presence of pre-Ordovician (Riphean?) island arc, with synchronous extension in a Precaspian back-arc basin is suggested. A middle Palaeozoic back-arc basin ensemble in what is now the western Karpinsky Swell was more than 100 km to the south from its present location. The Stavropol High migrated northwards, dislocating and moving fragments of this back-arc basin sometime thereafter. Linear positive magnetic anomalies reflect the position of associated faults, which define the location of the eastern segment of the Karpinsky Swell. These faults, which dip northward, are recognised on crustal DSS profiles crossing the Donbas Foldbelt and Scythian Plate. They are interpreted in terms of compressional tectonics younger than the Hercynian stage of evolution (i.e., post-Palaeozoic).