The Russian-Kazakh Altai orogen: An overview and main debatable issues

Abstract The paper reviews previous and recently obtained geological, stratigraphic and geochronological data on the Russian-Kazakh Altai orogen, which is located in the western Central Asian Orogenic Belt (CAOB), between the Kazakhstan and Siberian continental blocks. The Russian-Kazakh Altai is a typical Pacific-type orogen, which represents a collage of oceanic, accretionary, fore-arc, island-arc and continental margin terranes of different ages separated by strike-slip faults and thrusts. Evidence for this comes from key indicative rock associations, such as boninite- and turbidite (graywacke)-bearing volcanogenic-sedimentary units, accreted pelagic chert, oceanic islands and plateaus, MORB-OIB-protolith blueschists. The three major tectonic domains of the Russian-Kazakh Altai are: (1) Altai-Mongolian terrane (AMT); (2) subduction-accretionary (Rudny Altai, Gorny Altai) and collisional (Kalba-Narym) terranes; (3) Kurai, Charysh-Terekta, North-East, Irtysh and Char suture-shear zones (SSZ). The evolution of this orogen proceeded in five major stages: (i) late Neoproterozoic–early Paleozoic subduction-accretion in the Paleo-Asian Ocean; (ii) Ordovician–Silurian passive margin; (iii) Devonian–Carboniferous active margin and collision of AMT with the Siberian continent; (iv) late Paleozoic closure of the PAO and coeval collisional magmatism; (v) Mesozoic post-collisional deformation and anarogenic magmatism, which created the modern structural collage of the Russian-Kazakh Altai orogen. The major still unsolved problem of Altai geology is origin of the Altai-Mongolian terrane (continental versus active margin), age of Altai basement, proportion of juvenile and recycled crust and origin of the middle Paleozoic units of the Gorny Altai and Rudny Altai terranes.