PALEOZOIC STAGE OF GEOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF SIKHOTE-ALIN AND SOUTHERN PRIMOR'YE

This paper summarizes the Paleozoic evolution of the Sikhote-Alin, an enormous mountain chain over 1,000 km long and 200 km wide with Vladivostok at the southern tip. It forms a part of the Asiatic branch of the Pacific belt of folded mountain structures. This paper includes a) a pre-Sinian (early Paleozoic) stage involving the formation of the granitic layer which is believed to be only about 10 km thick, b) a Sinian phase during which the folded basement of the geosyncline evolved, c) a late Paleozoic phase resulting in the establishment of the geosyncline and two related massifs, d) a Mesozoic phase culminating the geosynclinal evolution, and e) the Cenozoic phase that led to creation of the present mountains. The report deals mainly with the first three phases. Included are diagrammatic maps showing the paleotectonic synthesis of the Sikhote-Alin at various times during the Paleozoic Era. The paper is mainly structural and only incidentally stratigraphic. B. N. Cooper