GEOCHEMICAL DISTINCTIONS OF GRANITOIDS IN THE TAGANAI-IREMEL ANTICLINORIUM (CENTRAL URAL MEGAZONE)

Abstract

As is well known, the geological structure of the Urals is very complicated owing to the overlapping of signatures of all episodes of the evolution of the Earth’s crust. Therefore, unambiguous interpretation of the Uralian structure is difficult. In terms of composition, age, and genesis of constituents, the Ural Orogen is characterized by sharp asymmetry due to the collision of the ancient East European and the young Kazakhstan continents. According to this scenario, the Ural Orogen is distinctly separated by the Main Ural Fault into two sectors. The western sector corresponds to a tectonic zone where ancient island arcs and the riftogenic margin of the East European Platform collided with several allochthons of oceanic and island-arc complexes, which have roots in the Main Ural Fault zone. The eastern sector represents a stacking of oceanic, island-arc, and microcontinental blocks [7]. This concept suggests that the Earth’s crust is very heterogeneous in the Ural Orogen.