The Geology Of The U.s.s.r.. A Short Outline

OTHER TITLES IN THIS SERIES Vol. 1. BENIOFF et al—Contributions in Geophysics Vol. 2. SWINEFORD—Clay and Clay Minerals (Sixth Conference) Vol. 3. GINZBURG—Principles of Geochemical Prospecting Vol. 4. WAIT—Overvoltage Research in Geophysical Vol. 5. SWINEFORD—Clay and Clay Minerals (Seventh Conference) Vol. 6. BREGER—Organic Vol. 7. KRINOV—Principles of Meteorites Geochemistry Applications THE GEOLOGY OF THE U.S.S.R. A SHORT OUTLINE I N C L U D I N G A 1:7,500,000 SCALE GEOLOGICAL MAP OF T H E U . S . S . R . IN FULL COLOUR BY D. V. NALIVKIN M E M B E R OF T H E U.S.S.R. A C A D E M Y OF S C I E N C E S P R O F E S S O R OF H I S T O R I C A L AT T H E M I N I N G I N S T I T U T E , GEOLOGY LENINGRAD Translated from the Russian by S. I . TOMKEIEFF D . S C , F.R.S.E. Translation Editor J. E. RICHEY SC.D., F.R.S. PERGAMON PRESS OXFORD · LONDON · NEW YORK · PARIS 1960 PERGAMON PRESS LTD. Headington Hill Hall, Oxford 4 &5 Fitzroy Square, London W.l PERGAMON PRESS INC. 122 East 55th Street, New York 22, N.Y. P.O. Box 47715, Los Angeles, California PERGAMON PRESS S.A.R.L. •r 24 Rue des Ecoles, Paris Ve PERGAMON PRESS, G.m.b.H. Kaiserstrass 75, Frankfurt am Main Copyright © 1960 PERGAMON PRESS LTD. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CARD NO. 6 0 - 1 4 9 4 4 Printed in Great Britain by The Campfield Press, St. Al bans TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE ALTHOUGH the science of geology—the study of the earth—is obviously supranational in its scope and interest, there have from time to time existed barriers to free communications. More permanent and more fundamental obstacles are the language barriers. It is hard to realize that the last comprehensive account of the geology of Russia in English was published in 1845. This was the famous folio entitled The Geology of Russia in Europe and the Ural Mountains by R. I. Murchison, E. de Verneuil and A. von Keyserling (London-Paris, 1845, 2 vols.). It was the great Russian geologist A. P. Karpinsky (1847-1936) who, in a series of articles published in 1883, 1887 and 1894, laid the foundations of the palaeogeography and tectonics of European Russia. The first attempt to give a systematic stratigraphical and tectonic description of European Russia was made by G. P. Mikhailovsky (1870-1912) in his book Historical Geology, of which only the first volume was published posthumously in 1913. At a later date A. D. Arkhangelsky made an attempt to fill the gap by publishing three important books: Introduction to the Study of the Geology of European Russia, 1923, Survey of the Geological Structure of the European Russia, 1926, and Geological Structure and Geological History of the U.S.S.R., 1948. The geology of the Asian part of Russia was partly covered by the monumental work of V. A. Obruchev (1865-1956) entitled The Geology of Siberia, published in 1935-1938, and by the book by K. N. Paffenholtz entitled The Geological Description of the Caucasus, published in 1959. Needless to say all books mentioned are published in the Russian language. S. von Bubnoff in his Geologie von Europa, Vol. I, 1926, included an account of the geology of European Russia in German. The 2), Upper Devonian bedded limestones (D3), Lower Carboniferous limestone (G) and finally argillaceous-arenaceous deposits of Upper Palaeozoic and Triassic age. Lower Carboniferous (d) The Lower Carboniferous is most fully developed in Armenia, where the Tournaisian and Visean stages are both represented. In the watershed region of the western part of the Great Caucasus the series is represented by two facies: