LATE DEVONIAN GRANITE GNEISS COMPLEX OF THE SOUTHERN URALS

Abstract

Late Devonian is a crucial boundary in the evolution of the Uralian active margin of the East European Craton. This time is characterized by the beginning of collision of the East European continent with the Magnitogorsk island arc and closure of marginal basin with an oceanic crust. These events were responsible for over-thrusting of Ordovician-Devonian siliceous, tuffogenic, and volcanogenic complexes and formation of thick flysch and olistostrome sequences in the Zalair, Sakmara, and Sakmara-Voznesensk zones. The same processes were presumably responsible for the Late Devonian high-pressure metamorphism of Paleozoic and older complexes of the Uraltau zone.