Epi-Paleozoic Horst-Anticlinoria and Shelf Troughs of Arctic Margin of Eurasia: ABSTRACT

Abstract

The most intensively developing morphostructures of the Arctic margin of Eurasia are predetermined by mobile belts developed on ancestral Paleozoic eugeosynclines. There are horst-anticlinoria which are cut by shoreline or in places intersect it; in the latter case, they extend deeply into the Arctic shelf area (Novaya Zemlya and others). These rejuvenated mountains are replaced along their trends by graben-subsidences and then by shelf (epicontinental) troughs. The troughs are especially distinctive and varied within the Barents-Kara Sea, linking the Paleozoic synclinal zones of Scandinavia, Severnaya Zemlya, Urals-Novaya Zemlya, and Spitsbergen that extend into this part of the Arctic shelf. In the Laptevykh-Chukchi Sea sector where the mobile belts are connected only w th some blocks of Paleozoic eugeosynclinal basement (Brooks, Wrangel, and others), epicontinental troughs are less prominent. The mobile belts also are the weakened zones of tectonosphere controlling pre-fracturing and gradual subsidence of stable (intertrough) areas. Epicontinental troughs, replaced horst-anticlinoria, and graben-subsidences are replaced in turn by marginal and continental slopes. Coastal lowlands and nearshore shelves are replaced by outer shelves, avant-shelves, and bathyal and abyssal plateaus. Thus, a genetic series of linear and areal morphostructures may be distinguished; their presence proves the development of oceanization of the Arctic margin of Eurasia and the origin of the deep-water Arctic basin. End_of_Article - Last_Page 2477------------