Problem of old marine shorelines in Russian geology during second half of nineteenth century

In Russia, as elsewhere, the study of paleogeography emerged near the end of the nineteenth century and was based on facies analysis and paleoecology. Determining former shorelines is the most important question in paleogeography. The actualist method, by which the results obtained from an examination of present-day facies could be extrapolated to the past, provided a reliable premise for the determination of ancient shorelines. Recent changes in coasts were observed and were attributed to rise and fall of ocean level, to uplifts and subsidences of the land, or to sediment compaction. Since much of the continental surface has still not been adequately studied, however, the picture of land-sea distribution throughout geological history was fragmentary. It was discovered that conglomerates formed the bulk of coastal sediments in mountainous littorals; sandy and argillaceous deposits were widespread in the shore zone of low-lying land. Golovkinskiy was of the opinion that coastal sedimentation was influenced by climatic factors. Influences of lagoons, barrier beaches, and rivers on shorelines were appreciated. In discovering the position of Russian Devonian and Carboniferous shorelines, Inostrantsev made use of well-known fossil forms. Kovalevskiy attempted to reconstruct the distribution of land and sea over Europe in the Jurassic and Cretaceous. Nikitin pointed out that many paleogeographic maps show only the area in which marine sediments are found today and the limits differ considerably from the former extent of the seas. In 1880, Karpinskiy made the first attempt to depict the configuration of land and sea during the Carboniferous, Devonian, Permian and Triassic. The works of many other geologists are also reviewed.—J. D. Haun