TECTONIC EVOLUTION OF THE RUDNYY ALTAY DURING THE PALEOZOIC

Only the post-Ordovician history can be reconstructed for Rudnyy Altay and the adjacent South Altay and Kalba. Its distinctive feature is intensive Late Devonian - Early Carboniferous subsidence, followed by a general late Visean - early Namurian uplift. In the Silurian and Early Devonian it presented an anticlinal uplift, while Kalba and South Altay were subsiding. The Hercynian geosynclinal troughs of Rtidnyy Altay (Bystrushinsk and Beloubinsk) are geosynclines of the "second generation," a result of the breaking up of the Caledonian uplift. The terminal stage in Rudnyy Altay culminated in a Permian uplift. Each stage was accompanied by faulting and volcanism, the great Irtysh fault probably being the oldest. The authors believe that synclines and anticlines of Gornyy Altay were developed on the background of a vast magmatic hearth, with the lighter acid magmatic products moving toward the anticlines, by way of a dense network of faults. Basic material from deeper reaches ascended by way of deep rifts, to marginal parts of anticlinal uplifts. -- Scripta Technica, Inc.