Structural Elements of the Sea of Japan’s Basin and Adjacent Continental and Island Dry Land, According to Data from Space-Based Geological Investigations

Abstract

A representative system of fault and block dislocations in the Sea of Japan segment of the continent–ocean transition zone, identified using space-based geological data and a set of available geomorphological, geological, and geophysical materials, allow the eponymous Late Paleozoic mega-arch to be constructed. The ring form, duration, and scales of basite, acidic magmatism, and the presence of geological and geophysical signs of mantle diapirism associate the main features of its structure and development with plume activity. The geological prehistory, plume tectonics, and periodic inversions of the geodynamic regime determined the direction and character of destructive transformations of the continental margin in the Early Mesozoic and Middle and Late Cenozoic, and the specific character of the region evolution in general. Features of the inherited development of the structural plan include the preservation of the granite core of the mega-arch, associated with the underwater Yamato rise having a continental type of crust, in the geometric center of the Sea of Japan basin; the presence of radial-concentric hypsometric and structural-magmatic zonation; and the relict nature of many other underwater rises. The absence of compensatory collision–accretion dislocations in the east of Honshu Island and on the island arc slope of the adjacent deep-sea trench, the weak variability of strikes of dry land–sea tectonic marks through faults in satellite images, the preservation of the paleoarch structural elements, and other data contradict ideas about large horizontal movements of lithospheric blocks within the Sea of Japan segment of the Eurasia–Pacific Ocean transition zone.