TECTONOPHYSICAL EVIDENCES OF GEODYNAMIC EVOLUTION OF THE PRIKOLYMA TERRAIN (NORTH-EASTERN REGIONS OF RUSSIA)

The Prikolyma terrain is a part of the Yana-Kolyma orogenic belt located in the North Eastern Asia. It is generally composed of the Proterozoic deposits, including sandstones, metapellites, quartz-feldspar and carbonate rocks, meta- and hyperbasites. The Prikolyma terrain represents a fragment of passive margin of the North-Asian craton that was detached in the Middle Paleozoic due to progressing rifting. Subsequent geological development of the terrain was determined by accretion events at its boundary with margin of the North-Asian craton and the Omolon microcraton. Its longterm geodynamic evolution is reflected in the character and sequence of formation of the Prikolyma terrain deformation structures. 

In the central part of the Prikolyma terrain, i.e. in the basin of the Malaya Stolbovaya river, two reference areas of tectonics were studied, which contain packs of thrust sheets complicated by subsequent highangle faults.

The fault pattern is complex, and its major elements are gently dipping zones of plastic deformation, which mark the boundaries of petrographically heterogenous plates. The thrust packs  are more than 200 m thick; their root zones are represented by series of highangle reverse faults. Another important element of the fault pattern is highangle zones of brittle deformation, which kinematic characteristics are ambiguous. A vertical component of displacement is predominant for the faults of the north-western strike; a strike-slip component is characteristic of latitudinal and meridional faults. The fault pattern developed in several stages under the impact of fields of tectonic stress, which vectors were variable. The folds, comprising a uniform structural paragenesis with thrusts, are of great importance for the structure under study. The largest folds exhibit the asymmetric structure with the N-E dipping axial planes. Axes of smaller folds are oriented to N-W and N–NW.

Four stages of deformation are distinguished in the history of geological development of the Prikolyma terrain. The earliest stage was characterized by the N-E compression resulting in formation of the N-W-oriented thrusts and folds and zones of greenschiest dynamo-metamorphism. During the second stage, the axis of compression gained the E–NE orientation, and the axis of extension was oriented to the N–NW, which influenced the formation of the submeridional reverse faults and thrusts. During the third stage, the axis of compression was N-W oriented, and the axis of extension gained the N-E orientation. Thereat, the sublatitudinal and submeridional structures were activated as strike-slip faults, the N-W structures as normal faults, and the N-E structures as reverse faults. The above resulted in the formation of structures of volume extension, which are favorable for localization of magmatic bodies and ore streaky-veined structures. At the final stage, compression in the meridional direction lead to the formation of thrusts and reverse faults along the sublatitudinal displacements, normal faults along the submeridional displacements, and strike-slips along the N-E and NW displacements.

The first deformation stage was contemporaneous with the long-term period of compression in the Riphean and Early Paleozoic, when the dynamo-metamorphic complex of the Prikolyma terrain was developed. In the second stage, the Prikolyma terrain was detached from the margin of the North-Asian craton. In the Early Cretaceous, the third stage took place, when rearrangements of the field of tectonic stresses and transition to conditions of general extension caused emplacement of granitoids and quartz veining. The N-W orientation of the compression vector suggests that the third stage was related to the regional tangential compression due to the asymmetrical collision of the Prikolyma terrain and the Omolon microcraton. In the final stage, rotation of the vector of compression, associated with development of numerous N-W and N-E-oriented fractures, reflected the occurrence of the epiorogenic rifting. The above-described stages of formation of the deformation structure of the Prikolyma terrain are evidently correlated with the main tectono-magmatic stages of development of the NE margin of the North-Asian craton, which took place in the Late Paleozoic and the Mesozoic.

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