Baikalo-Mongolian Transect
Zorin, Yu. A., V.G. Belichenko, E.Kh. Turutanov, V.V. Modvinova,
V.M. Kozhev- nikov, P. Khozbayar, O. Tomurtogoo, N. Arvisbaatar,
S. Gao, and P. Davis
Geology and Geophysics, 35:
94-110, Nauka, Novosibirsk, Russia,1994
Abstract
In addition to an earlier Central-Mongolia transect approximating the 100 degree E
Meridian, another transect, Baikal-Mongolia, has been constructed which runs NNW-SSE
and traverses outskirts of Irkutsk and Ulan Bator. Geological and geophysical studies
of the new transect and comparison of the data obtained with the parameters of the
previous transect permitted us to refine our knowledge of spatial relations between
some of the terranes constituting the study region of Asia. Major terranes traversed
by the Baikal-Mongolia transect are microcontinents with the Precambrian basement.
They are separated by suture zones composed of dislocated Paleozoic rocks which belong
to island arc, fore-arc or less often to back-arc basins. In the paleozoic these
microcontinents were separated by wide oceans. If Middle-Late Paleozoic Khangai and
Khentei zones are treated as fore-arc basins making up part of the southern(in the
modern coordinates) active margin of the Siberian continent, then the Mongolo-Okhotsk
suture produced by closure of the respective ocean must frame the basins in the south
and not in the north as is suggested elsewhere.
