DEEP STRUCTURE IN THE NORTH CASPIAN REGION

Abstract

The junction of the East European craton and the Sythian-Turanian platform runs under the northern Caspian Sea, as does the continuation of their major structures. However, because extremely little is known about the geology and the geophysics of this region, there still are sharply different views on its deep structure, including the position of the boundary between continental crustal blocks of different age. An important event in investigations of the North Caspian region was the high-precision 1:100,000-scale aeromagnetic survey which was carried out here in 1986 and 1987, and whose legs were tied in by radiogeodesy. Observations were made with KAM-28 aeromagnetic stations and a radiogeodetic sonde. The high-sensitivity quantum equipment used in this survey gave new high-quality information on the deep structure of the region. Because analogous surveys have already been made in adjacent land areas to the north and the east, it now has appeared possible to correlate all available data and thereby somewhat clarify present ideas on the tectonics of the northern Caspian Sea.