Main Uralian Fault

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The Main Uralian Fault (MUF) runs northsouth through the middle of the Ural
Mountains for over 2,000 km. It separates both Europe from Asia and the three, or
four, western megazones of the Urals from the three eastern megazones namely the
Pre-Uralian Foredeep, West Uralian, and the Central Uralian to the west, and the
Tagil-Magnitogorskian, East Uralian, and Transuralian to the east. The Russian
Plate is often included as the fourth megazone to the west. On the west side of the
fault the rocks represent the sediments of the eastern continental margin zone of
the European Plate (Baltica). On the east the rocks are accreted oceanic and island
arc basalts, ultramafics and volcanics as well as the sediments of the western
continental margin zones of the Siberian craton (Angara Plate) on the north and the
Kazakhstan craton on the south.

Contents [hide]
1 Formation
2 Dip
3 Notes
4 Further reading
5 External links
Formation[edit]
The Main Uralian Fault formed in the Riphean (early Neoproterozoic) in the breakup
of the supercontinent Rodinia as a rift valley between the Baltica and the Angara
Plate (Siberian craton). As these two plates pulled apart eventually a mid-ocean
ridge formed. The ridge was of basic (basalt) and ultramafic material. Some 500
million years later, in the Silurian, a subduction zone formed on the western
margin of the Angara Plate, which at the time was on the western edge of Gondwana,
and the oceanic plate was subducted underneath the Angara Plate, accreting some of
the basalts and ultramafics onto the Angara Plate. Sialic sediments were
metamorphosed, melted and intruded into the rocks above as granites. By the early
Carboniferous the oceanic plates were completed subducted and the eastern margin of
Baltica, then on the eastern edge of Laurussia began to collide with the western
edge of Angara. In the south the western edge of Kazakhstania may have been pushed
under Baltica. This collision in known generally as the Variscan orogeny, and
specifically as to the Urals as the Uralian orogeny The collision lasted nearly 90
million years from the Carboniferous to the early Triassic.[1][2][3][4] The MUF
remained active as the plates ground against each other as Pangea was formed and
the Ural Mountains were raised up.

Dip[edit]
There is seismic evidence that the Main Uralian Fault extends very deep, in excess
of 15 km, into the crust and dips to the east as a result of the subduction zone
that formed in the Silurian along the western margin of the Siberian craton. This
is supported by evidence of a north-south magmatic axis in the southern Urals that
runs through the East Uralian megazone.[5]

Notes[edit]
Jump up ^ D. Brown & H. Echtler. The Urals. In R. C. Selley, L. R. M. Cocks & I. R.
Plimer (eds.), Encyclopedia of Geology, Vol. 2. Elsevier, 2005. P 86-95.
Jump up ^ L. R. M. Cocks & T. H. Torsvik. European geography in a global context
from the Vendian to the end of the Palaeozoic. In Gee, D. G. & Stephenson, R. A.
(eds), European Lithosphere Dynamics. Geological Society, London, Memoirs, 32,
8395.
Jump up ^ Victor N. Puchkov. The evolution of the Uralian orogen. Geological
Society, London, Special Publications, 2009; v. 327; p. 161-195.
Jump up ^ D. Brown et al. Mountain building processes during continentcontinent
collision in the Uralides. Earth-Science Reviews, Volume 89, Issues 3-4, August
2008, Pages 177-195.
Jump up ^ Fershtater, G.B., Montero, P., Borodina, N.S., Pushkarev, E.V., Smirnov,
V.N., and Bea, F. (1997). Uralian magmatism an overview. Tectonophysics. 276
87102. Bibcode1997Tectp.276...87F. doi10.1016S0040-1951(97)00049-8.
Further reading[edit]
Brown, D., Juhlin, C., Alvarez-Marron, J., Perez-Estaun, A., and Oslianski, A.
(1998). Crustal-scale structure and evolution of an arc-continent collision zone in
the southern Urals, Russia. Tectonics. 17 158171. Bibcode1998Tecto..17..158B.
doi10.102998tc00129.
Juhlin, C., Knapp, J. H., Kashubin, S., and Bliznetsov, M. (1996). Crustal
evolution of the Middle Urals based on seismic re?ection and refraction data (PDF).
Tectonophysics. 264 2134. Bibcode1996Tectp.264...21J. doi10.1016S0040-
1951(96)00115-1.
Juhlin, C. Friberg, M., Echtler, H.P., Hismatulin, T., Rybalka, A., Green, A.G.,
and Ansorge, J. (1998). Crustal structure of the Middle Urals Results from the
(ESRU) Europrobe seismic reflection profiling in the Urals experiments. Tectonics.
17 710725. Bibcode1998Tecto..17..710J. doi10.102998TC02762.
Kruse, S. & McNutt, M. (1988). Compensation of Paleozoic orogens a comparison of
the Urals to the Appalachians. Tectonophysics. 154 117.
Bibcode1988Tectp.154....1K. doi10.10160040-1951(88)90224-7.
Poupinet, G., Thouvenot, F., Zolotov, E.E., Matte, Ph., Egorkin, A.V., and
Rackitiv, V.A. (1997). Teleseismic tomography across the middle Urals lithospheric
trace of an ancient continental collision. Tectonophysics, 276 1933.
Puchkov, V.N. (1987). New Data on the Tectonics of the Urals. Geotectonics. 21
108116.
Puchkov, V.N. (1993). The Paleoceanic Structures of the Ural mountains.
Geotectonics. 27 184196.
Puchkov, V.N. (1997). Tectonics of the Urals Modern Concepts. Geotectonics. 31
294312.
Zonenshain, L., Kuzmin, M. and Natapov, L. (1990), Uralian Foldbelt, in Page, B.
M., Geology of the USSR A Plate Tectonic Synthesis, Geodynamics series, v. 21,
Washington, D.C. American Geophysical Union, pp. 2754, ISBN 978-0-87590-521-1
External links[edit]
Map of Main Uralian Fault showing megazones Zavacky, J. The Urals A Late Paleozoic
Mountain Belt
Categories Plate tectonicsGeology of European RussiaGeology of RussiaUral
MountainsSeismic faults of Europe
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