An ancient ocean that existed on earth. Geological history of the Caucasus
The Zone of Silence (Zone of Silence, "Tethys Sea") is an anomalous zone in the desert, a mysterious territory on the border of the states of Durango, Chihuahua and Coahuila (Mexico) 400 miles south of the American city of El Paso. The main oddity of this place is, first of all, that radios are muted here and not a single TV is receiving transmissions (hence the name given by the locals).
The "Zone of Silence" is a flat, dreary plain, on which frail prickly bushes and cacti are only occasionally found, but poisonous snakes are found in abundance. Nevertheless, people have settled here since prehistoric times, settling around the few springs. Some sources have not dried up so far.
In its mystery, as scientists assure, it is comparable to the Bermuda Triangle, the Egyptian pyramids and Buddhist monasteries in the Himalayas, and is on the same latitude as these world celebrities. What is this mystery? For example, in the fact that in the small town of Ceballos TVs do not work, and radios barely sound even at full power. If you drive away from this settlement for 50 kilometers into a deserted desert, then the radio turns off completely, the clock stops, and the compass needle dances.
According to Dr. Santiago Garcia, people knew about the oddities in this zone as early as the middle of the 19th century. Already in those days, farmers often observed “hot stones” falling to the ground from a clear sky ...
In the 1930s, a pilot for the Mexican state of Coahuila, Francisco Sarabia, lost his radio while flying over the area "for no apparent reason." He told his superiors about this and became the first officially recognized victim due to the strange features of the "Zone of Silence".
In 1964, chemical engineer Harry de la Peña was conducting a geophysical survey in this desert area near the hill of San Ignacio. A pure chance helped to discover the "Zone of Silence" - the engineer's radio suddenly failed. He returned to the base to repair the device, and the radio was intact. At the next visit to the mysterious place, history repeated itself. Since the opening of the "Zone of Silence" fell one after another. It turned out, in particular, that here meteorites literally fall from the sky as rain ["IG", 1997, No. 60, p. 4]. Despite the proximity of the United States, from where, it would seem, dozens of scientists would have to immediately come to study the mysteries of nature, nevertheless, no one was engaged in full-fledged experiments. It would be logical to assume that there is a secret military base nearby (under the ground?), whose powerful installations turn the entire ether upside down. But ... no one, including the Americans, has yet such equipment, especially since it was not in 1964.
However, both the authorities and the public became really interested in the "quirks" of the zone only in the 1970s, when the American experimental ballistic missile "Athena", launched from the White Sands test site, suddenly deviated from the course and, rushing to this zone, crashed to the ground ... A few years later, one of the stages of the Saturn rocket exploded above the zone (the launch vehicle of the famous Apollo spacecraft).
After that, according to media reports, the US military sent a special group to study the mysterious features of the ill-fated territory. One of the first scientists to explore the "Zone of Silence" and its strange properties was Harry de la Peña, it was his group who discovered that communication using portable radios was impossible in this place. Some "magnetic force that suppresses radio waves" was said to be operating in the region.
Since then, specialists from all over the world have been visiting the zone, using as a base camp the town built in its very center by the Mexican government. Scientists working in the town began to call the zone "The Tethys Sea" (after the name of the ancient ocean that flooded these places millions of years ago), and the research laboratory in the center of the town, designed to study the unusual forms of biological life found here and the occurring AP, was dubbed the "Biosphere".
Also, the appearance of UFOs and humanoid creatures has been noted here more than once. At the beginning of the 20th century, local residents met intelligent creatures of strange appearance and behavior.
On October 3, 1975, a strange meeting in the zone occurred with the spouses Ernesto and Josephine Diaz. These entrepreneurs and amateur archaeologists drove into the zone in their Ford pickup, intending to collect unusual stones and fossilized remains of ancient animals. Carried away by the search, they did not immediately notice the impending thunderstorm. A few minutes later, the couple hastily packed their finds into the car and rushed away.
However, a thunderstorm nevertheless overtook them, and the dirt road turned into a swamp. The pickup truck stalled, Ernesto and Josephine tried to keep the car from getting completely bogged down in the mud. And then 2 human figures appeared not far away, who walked towards the car through the streams of rain and waved their hands affably. Two very tall guys in yellow raincoats and hats offered their help to the desperate travelers. The trusting faces of strangers were unusual. The guys asked the spouses to sit back in the cab of the pickup truck, while they themselves moved to the back of the body. And before Ernesto and Josephine realized what was happening, their car literally flew out onto solid ground from a huge swamp! When Ernesto came to his senses, he got out of the cockpit to thank the rescuers, they were nowhere to be seen...
Travelers who regularly traverse the zone report strange lights or fireballs moving over the ground at night. For a while they hang motionless in the air, changing their color, and then suddenly take off and disappear with the speed of lightning ... Two farmers returning home from a party said that they saw a huge UFO in the form of a brightly glowing ball that descended from the dark sky to the ground, and humanoids came out of it, glowing with the same strange light. The humanoids went to the stunned farmers, but they came to their senses and rushed to run.
Some locals, many of whom are quite trustworthy, have not only observed the mysterious lights. Returning to this place in the morning, they saw scorched or scorched bunches of grass and frail bushes.
In 1976, the first photographs of a UFO were taken in this area, landing near the local topographic landmark - Magnetic Mountain. The pictures clearly show a sparkling silver object that looks like a huge roast patch. The reporter was able to take a few pictures and during the takeoff of the UFO, when he soared up with a loud rumble, rushed to the west and quickly disappeared from sight.
The small ranch, located at the borders of the zone, was regularly visited by 3 tall, long-haired blond personalities - two men and one woman, whom the owners of the estate describe as exceptionally polite, very beautiful, but strangely dressed people. And although they spoke Spanish flawlessly, an unusual musical ringing was heard in the timbre of their voices. Did mysterious visitors come solely to replenish water supplies. They politely asked permission to fill the flasks they brought with them with water from the well and never asked for food or anything else but water. When they were asked where they came from, they smiled and answered: "From above."
In November 1978, journalist Luis Ramirez Reyes went to the zone as part of a group of journalists. Deciding to get ahead of the rest of the group, Ramirez and his photographer drove a jeep deep into the desert to reach the Biosphere first. They were still very far from the final destination, when Ramirez suddenly realized that they had not taken any supplies with them - neither water nor provisions - and they could easily die of thirst and hunger if they suddenly got lost in the harsh desert. They soon reached a fork in the barely rutted sandy road, and chose their path incorrectly. After some time, Ramirez noticed 3 figures walking towards them ahead. Hoping that these were local residents who could be asked the way to the Biosphere, he asked the photographer who was driving to stop the car. But to Ramirez's surprise, the jeep passed them without slowing down! When asked why the photographer did not stop near the people walking along the road, he replied that he had not seen any people on the road! Ramirez decided that the desert had already affected his psyche and he began to see visions ... The jeep drove a couple more miles, and Ramipec, to his amazement, again saw the same "3 locals" in front of him. When the car caught up with them, Ramirez asked the photographer (who still did not see anyone on the road) to stop and began to ask those he met about the road to the Biosphere. They explained that they needed to turn aside and drive along the mountainous part of the Tethys Sea. Also, these locals reported that they were looking for their lost sheep and goats here, although they did not have any flasks of water or special equipment necessary for travelers in the harsh local conditions.
Following the recommendations received from the "natives", after a while the travelers breathed a sigh of relief when they saw the tall building of the "Biosphere" in the distance. When they reached her and met with the rest of their group, Ramirez told the audience about the strange meeting. Harry de la Peña, who listened attentively to him, noted in an edifying tone that there were no peasants or other people in the desert, except for the visiting group of correspondents and those who made up the permanent contingent of Biosphere. And, of course, there are no sheep and goats to look after. A survey of the area carried out in the following days made it possible to make sure that the desert was completely deserted for tens of miles around ...
There are reports of encounters with strangely dressed dwarfs only a few tens of centimeters tall! As local businessman Ruben Lopez was driving through the Tethys Sea to Ceballos at night, his car's engine suddenly began to malfunction. He was very surprised, because the car had just undergone a complete maintenance. Ahead, about thirty meters, Lopez noticed 5 undersized figures standing at the edge of the road. At first he thought they were lost children, but then he saw that they were wearing silver overalls and their heads were covered with helmets that looked like motorcycles. When they began to approach the car, as if surrounding it, a frightened Lopez sharply “revved” in neutral gear, the engine howled, and the undersized creatures rushed in all directions into the darkness of the night. After the strange dwarfs disappeared from sight, the car engine started working normally again ...
In the zone both before and now meteorites fall in large numbers. In the late 1950s, a meteorite that fell near Chihuahua (the capital of the Mexican state of the same name) was reported to contain "crystalline structures far older than our solar system"! According to Professor Luis Maeda Villalobos, “the material of this meteorite is as ancient as the universe itself. The solar system is 5 billion years old, and this meteorite is a whopping 7 billion years older.”
There are also mysterious ruins of an ancient complex of gigantic stone structures, most likely an astronomical observatory built several millennia ago, in the Tethys Sea. Some archaeologists believe that this observatory could not have been created by the local primitive primitive tribes...
What are the reasons for the appearance of numerous UFOs and AEs?
Dr. Santiago Garcia, who spent much of his life studying this anomalous region, suggested that the source of some of the wandering lights could be an experimental reconnaissance robot tested here by the US military. During the day, his solar panels were automatically recharged, and at night he secretly carried out his research. Garcia recalled that when the Air Force team arrived at the site of the Athena crash to collect her wreckage, the military took with them several truckloads of soil they had taken in the desert for analysis.
It is also believed that there are rich deposits of magnetite in the area, and that it is this iron ore that is the cause of the suppression of electromagnetic waves. In addition, it has been proven that the rocks of the ridges surrounding the "Zone of Silence" contain a significant amount of uranium.
But why are UFOs here? Where do their crews come from? There is no answer to this question yet.
The name of the ocean Tethys comes from the name of the Greek goddess of the sea Tethys - (Greek Tethys).
Ancient Ocean Tethys, existed during the Mesozoic era and separated the two ancient continents of the Earth, which were called Gondwana and Laurasia.
Modern scientific research by geologists, oceanologists and other scientists indisputably confirms the existence of an ancient oceanic basin on Earth, which separated in the meso Zoic era (200-70 million years ago) The European and Siberian continental masses from the African and Hindustan and connected the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific. 
At the end of the 19th century, this ocean was named Tethiso m at the suggestion of an outstanding Austrian geologist E. Suess.
Now there are only remnants (relics) of the once vast Tethys Ocean: the Mediterranean, Black Sea, Azov and Caspian Seas, and for the most part The former territory of Tethys contains the highest mountain ranges: the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Carpathians, the Caucasus, the Hindu Kush, the Himalayas, composed of rocks formed at the bottom of the former basin. 
In 1965, Tajik geologists discovered in the valleys of the Zeravshan Range at an altitude of 1500 m above sea level a petrified starfish - an inhabitant of the underwater world. This find once again confirms the opinion of scientists that once the current The ridges of the Western Pamirs were an archipelago of islands among the expanses of Tethys.
Not only at the bottom of the Black Sea, you can find many fossils - inhabitants the once vast Tethys Ocean. The fossilized remains of the inhabitants of the sea can be found in dumps, near the city of Belogorsk in the Crimea. 
Ammonites (lat. Ammonoidea) - an extinct subclass of cephalopods, existed in the pre-Cretaceous period. Fossilized remains of ammonites can be found in the Black Sea and on coastal rocks.
Ammonites got their name from the name of the ancient Egyptian god Amun, who was depicted with spiral horns.
The cephalopods became the dominant group of molluscs during the Ordovician period and were represented by primitive nautiloids. In our time, 2 modern subclasses are known: Coleoidea, which includes octopus, squid, cuttlefish; and Nautiloidea, represented by nautilus and Allonautilus.
2 extinct groups are also known: Ammonoidea (ammonites) and Belemnoidea (belemnites).
1. What is the Caucasus. Geography, structure, structure.
Many are familiar with the Caucasus.
Gigantic mountain ranges crowned with snowy peaks elevated above the clouds. Deep gorges and abysses. Endless steppes. Subtropical vegetation of the warm shores of the Black Sea, dry semi-deserts of the Caspian Sea, flowering alpine meadows of mountain slopes. Stormy mountain streams with waterfalls, serene expanse of mountain lakes, and drying up steppe rivers of the foothills. Failed volcanoes of Pyatigorsk and volcanic lava highlands of Armenia. These are just some of the contrasts of this vast region.
What is the Caucasus geographically?
In the direction approximately from north to south, the Caucasus consists of the following parts.
The Ciscaucasian Plain, which is a natural continuation of the Russian or East European Plain, begins south of the Kuma-Manych depression. The western part of Ciscaucasia is crossed by the flat part of the Kuban River, which flows into the Sea of Azov. The eastern part of Ciscaucasia is irrigated by the flat section of the Terek River, which flows into the Caspian. In the central part of Ciscaucasia lies the Stavropol Upland with average heights from 340 to 600 meters and individual elevations up to 832 m (Mount Strizhament).
The next part is the Greater Caucasus. It stretches for a distance of about 1,500 kilometers, from the Taman to the Absheron peninsulas.
The Greater Caucasus is formed by four ridges parallel for the most part, rising from north to south step by step. The smallest Pasture Range, it is also called the Black Mountains. Behind him rises the Rocky Range. These two ridges are cuesta ridges, with a gentle northern and steep southern slope. After the Rocky Ridge, the Lateral, or Frontal Ridge rises, it is on it that Elbrus, Dykh-Tau, Koshtan-Tau, Kazbek and others are located.
The narrow Arkhyz-Zagedan, Bezhetinskaya and other depressions separate the Lateral Range from the Main, or Dividing Range.
The narrow southern slope of the Greater Caucasus is replaced by the Transcaucasian depression, which consists of the Rion or Colchis depression and the Kura depression. Between the depressions there is a narrow Suramsky or Likhsky ridge.
Even further south lies the Transcaucasian Highlands, which is part of the vast Western Asian Highlands. In the north and northeast of the highlands are the ridges of the Lesser Caucasus. And to the south-west of the Lesser Caucasus stretch the lava massifs of the Armenian-Javakheti highlands.
But the Caucasus has not always been like this, and will not always be like this. This, in general, quite obvious consideration serves as a convenient transition to the question of how exactly the Caucasus was formed. Behind the rather dry phrase "geological history of the Caucasus" are full of drama and impressive catastrophes the life stages of a living planet - the Earth. Millions of years of successive and sometimes unhurried changes end in impulses of eruptions of huge volcanoes, and vice versa, flashes of catastrophic events respond in the subsequent time interval of millions of years. And the calm, muddy bottom of the warm sea becomes an icy mountain peak, from the edge of which stone falls fall with a roar.
It is very difficult to single out a point in time from which to begin the description of the history of the Caucasus. Simply because in order to fully understand the processes at a certain point in time, one must also know the previous episodes. When you talk about the collapse of strata, the formation of mountains at a certain point in time, the question always arises of how and when these strata themselves formed. And those may be products of the destruction of some more ancient mountains or structures. And so behind each ancient geological episode one can see a clear or not very clear picture of previous events...
2. The evolution of the Caucasus. From seas to mountains.
The starting, albeit very conditional, period of time, starting from which we can say that the events are already related to the processes that led to the formation of the modern Caucasus, is the second half and the end of the Paleozoic era (that is, a period of time from 400 to 250 million years ago). Then on Earth there were not only people, but also dinosaurs. Mentally look at the entire region at that time.
There has long been a strong and relatively calm Russian platform. It came together about 2 billion years ago from three blocks of the crystalline basement. These blocks were formed even earlier - from the merging of basalt plates and further melting of their heaps into granites of the continental crust.
In the second half of the Paleozoic, the Russian platform is part of the Laurasia continent. It is gradually moving closer to another mainland, Gondwana.
Let us recall the main provisions of the concept of mobile lithospheric plates. Blocks of relatively rigid rocks - lithospheric plates - move along the mantle surface under the influence of mantle convective flows - very slow on the time scale familiar to us, but quite noticeable on the geological time scale. Plates are oceanic and continental. The continental plate along the periphery includes areas with oceanic crust. Lithospheric plates float on the surface of the asthenosphere (the asthenosphere is the upper weakened layer of the mantle with reduced viscosity) and move along it. This movement is caused by the convective movement of the mantle as a whole. The earth's crust is of two types - continental (granite) and oceanic (basalt).
A new oceanic crust is formed in spreading zones - mid-ocean ridges, where the asthenosphere material builds up the plate, and is absorbed in subduction zones, where the plate material returns to the asthenosphere.
So, in the second half of the Paleozoic, there is a convergence of Laurasia (North America plus Europe) and Gondwana (Africa plus South America).
In the process of convergence in the south of the Russian platform, where Ciscaucasia is today, a folding area is formed, a mobile belt associated with the existence of a subduction zone, when the oceanic crust is absorbed under the mainland, weakening its edge and providing volcanic activity and mobility of the earth's crust of the entire region.
Global convergence at that time, at the end of the Paleozoic, ended with the collision of Laurasia and Gondwana and the formation of the supercontinent or supercontinent Pangea. Between the continents connected in the region of the modern Mediterranean Sea and diverging to the east, a wedge-shaped space was formed - the Tethys Ocean.
Locally, in the process of convergence, the mentioned mobile belt experienced its evolution, lived its history. Its history is a local episode of the global picture of the convergence of lithospheric plates.
Compressive deformations in the mobile belt, which created the folded structure, began in the middle of the Visean age of the early Carboniferous, Carboniferous (about 335 million years ago). The reason for the deformations was the pressure of the oceanic crust on the belt in the process of convergence of continental blocks. They turned the mobile belt, the future Scythian platform, into an orogen, a mountain structure.
In the Permian period (its time interval is from 299 to 250 million years ago), the orogen began to experience collapse, the rapid disappearance of mountains. The reasons for the collapse are as follows. Since this orogen was not sandwiched between continental massifs, but arose as a result of the oceanic plate moving under the continent, with the weakening of pressure and the sinking of the oceanic plate, the forces that uplift the mountains also weakened. The blocks that made up the mountains began to slide down. Then the crumpled, compressed, squeezed folds were penetrated by granite intrusions (intrusions). These intrusions, as it were, reinforced and fixed the folds. Pressure and temperatures have turned sedimentary and volcanic rocks into chlorite and sericite shales, which are the main composition of the Scythian plate.
Thus, along the northern margin of the Tethys Ocean, in the place of today's Ciscaucasian plains, a young (compared to the ancient East European or Russian platform) Scythian platform was formed from the mobile belt. Its latitudinal folds and still slightly mobile heterogeneous blocks keep memories of the compression processes and the life of a mountain structure. Despite the fact that we can hardly see them.
So, the main result of the events of that time, the end of the Paleozoic, was the formation of the Scythian platform, soldered to the Russian platform along its current southern edge.
As geologists know, supercontinents are unstable formations. Immediately after the formation of the supercontinent tends to break up. The reason for this is the same mantle flows that bored the continents pushed them together. Following the formation of a supercontinent, the lithosphere, which goes under it from all sides in subduction zones, accumulates under it, and then emerges, splitting the supercontinent.
The Triassic period (250 - 200 million years ago, this is the first period of the Mesozoic era) was just the time when the split of Pangea began. The blocks of lithospheric plates that made up Pangea began to move away from each other. Africa and Eurasia began to move away from each other. The fragmentation of the continental bridge between Europe, Africa and America began.
When the continental blocks move apart from each other, the oceanic crust located between these blocks builds up (in fact, this is the pushing apart). The buildup occurs during the formation of new crust in the mid-ocean ridges.
In our case, the axis of expansion of the Tethys Ocean fell on the northern margin of Gondwana. It was due to this, due to the formation of rifts, that the continental blocks broke off from Gondwana, starting their journey towards Eurasia. Recall that the rift is the initial stage of the development of the ocean as a structure, and the rift can later become (but not necessarily!) a mid-ocean ridge. A rift is a gap that is formed when the crust is pushed apart by rising magma. So, in the late Triassic, Iran broke away from Arabia, and, apparently, central Turkey. At the end of the Triassic - the beginning of the Jura (the Jurassic period takes from 199 to 145 million years ago), heterogeneous blocks broke away from Gondwana, which subsequently formed the Transcaucasian massif (in our time it separates the Greater and Lesser Caucasus).
On the opposite side of the Tethys Ocean, on the southern margin of Eurasia, the oceanic crust was absorbed in subduction zones along the edge of the plate. Apparently, the formation of the crust exceeded the rate of expansion of the lithospheric plates of Eurasia and Africa.
The subduction of the oceanic crust caused the emergence of a volcanic belt along the northern coast of the Tethys Ocean. Apparently, in the Triassic it was an Andean type belt, like the modern western coast of South America.
In the Jurassic period, the second period of the Mesozoic era, the disintegration of the supercontinent Pangea and its parts continued. And at the time described, the turn of the collapse of Gondwana came. In the early Middle Jurassic, Gondwana began to split into South America, Africa with Arabia, Antarctica and India. The split of South America and Africa (with Arabia) naturally led to an increase in the oceanic lithosphere between them and, which is very important for the region that we are describing, to a reduction in the distance between Africa and Eurasia. The Tethys Ocean began to shrink in size.
Where the oceanic crust of the Tethys Ocean was intensively moving under the edge of the Scythian plate, this edge weakened. This is a consequence of the fact that the oceanic plate, going down, melts, and the excess of molten matter tries to break through up.
On the weakened edge of the plate, rifting began to occur - the formation of rifts with the separation of the split fragments of the former base. The new crust expanded towards the ocean. The crust was generally continental, granitic, but intruded by outpourings of basalts. So (at the end of the Lower and the beginning of the Middle Jurassic, something about 175 million years ago) the so-called Greater Caucasus basin was formed. It was the edge sea. It was separated from the main Tethys ocean by an island volcanic arc, the existence of which is also explained by the weakening of the lithosphere in the subduction zone, underthrust, and the breakthrough of magma to the surface with the formation of volcanoes. The Greater Caucasus basin was stretched 1700-1800 km long and 300 km wide.
Late Jurassic, 145 million years ago. There is already a Greater Caucasian basin and an island arc. Note that the figures show structures, not seas and land. Although often structures and basins coincide.
Almost immediately after its formation, the crust of the Greater Caucasus Basin began to move under the continent, under the margin of Eurasia. The movement of the crust of the Tethys Ocean, which is absorbed to the south, causes weakening and stretching of the margin, and at the same time tries to close the newly formed basins.
And the system of volcanic arcs was waiting for a new transformation. This time at the beginning of the next, Cretaceous, period (it occupies the range of 145-65 million years ago). Again, there was a stretching of the crust in the rear of the arcs, for the same reasons as before. And already the stretching and expansion was so significant that as a result, a deep-water depression of the South Caspian with oceanic crust was formed. To the west, the crust simply thinned out, forming the base of the vast Pra-Black Sea basin.
At the beginning of the Late Cretaceous, about 90 Ma, the first collision of the Gondwanan continental blocks with the Lesser Caucasian island arc took place. These blocks are central Turkey, or Kirshehir (separated from Gondwana, as mentioned earlier, in the Triassic) and the Daralagez, or South Armenian block (break away from Afro-Arabia at the end of the Early Cretaceous, 110 million years ago). The northern branch of the Tethys Ocean has closed and disappeared. The remains of the bottom of this ocean, rocks called ophiolites, now lie in a strip along Lake Sevan and in a number of other places. Immediately after the collision, the subduction zone jumped to the south, to the edge of the newly pushed continental blocks. This snapping relieved the compressive stress in the zone of volcanic arcs and tension again occurred in the back of the arc. At the end of the Late Cretaceous, about 80 million years ago, this back-arc spreading resulted in the formation of the West Black Sea and East Black Sea deep oceanic basins. They are the basis of the structure of the modern Black Sea, and we can assume that the Black Sea was created just then. To date, these depressions are completely filled with sediments.
Sometimes, speaking about the origin of the Black and Caspian Seas, they are called the remnants of the Tethys Ocean. This is not entirely true, these seas, as we see, are the remains of back-arc basins that were separated from the ocean by island arcs.
Incidentally, in the same Late Cretaceous, on the southern coast of the Tethys Ocean, an interesting phenomenon occurred. Due to the compression of the oceanic crust (as we remember, the lithospheric plates, Africa and Eurasia continued to converge) and the reduction of the space between the blocks of plates, this oceanic crust literally crawled onto the edge of the Arabian coast from above, and did not sink under the mainland, as happens in most cases. This phenomenon is called obduction. The oceanic crust continues to lie there, occupying large areas. These are the ophiolites of Oman known to scientists and others.
Thus, the main trend in the Mesozoic period, as applied to the region under consideration, was the formation and evolution of island volcanic arcs and back-arc basins. This evolution is associated with the subduction zone.
Time continued to flow. The Mesozoic era was replaced by the Cenozoic.
The region, like the whole planet, has entered a new period of development. Both the planet and individual places were characterized by new specific events. For the planet as a whole, the border of the Cretaceous (this is still the Mesozoic) and the Paleogene (already the Cenozoic) is marked by the gradual extinction of dinosaurs and the coming to replace them with mammals. In the plant world, flowering plants enter the stage with complete authority, crowding gymnosperms.
At the beginning of the Paleogene period (the Paleogene occupies the range of 65 - 23 million years ago and is divided into the Paleocene, Eocene and Oligocene), the situation in the region we are talking about continued to be similar in principle to the Mesozoic. The Tethys Ocean was gradually shrinking, Africa was approaching Eurasia. The oceanic crust subducted under the margin of Eurasia framed by island arcs.
Scientists managed to reconstruct the appearance of the region of the future Caucasus at that time. Of course, it was different from today. But in the structures, its modern elements and parts were more and more clearly manifested, while they sometimes looked completely different from what we see today.
Above the modern Ciscaucasia, above the Scythian plate (and extending much to the north) lay a vast sea basin. It was the shelf of the Eurasian continent with not too great depths. Carbonate (limestones and marls) and clay deposits accumulated at its bottom, covering the structures of the Scythian plate.
In the future, this part will become the plain Ciscaucasia and the northern slope of the Greater Caucasus.
To the south lay a volcanic arc separating the Greater Caucasus basin from the rest of the Tethys Ocean. Its northern strip is in the future the underwater uplifts of the Shatsky swell and the Kurdamir swell, as well as the Dzirul ledge. The basis of this strip is the Transcaucasian massif. The southern part of the arc will become the Lesser Caucasus in the future.
Farther south lay the vast but shrinking Tethys Ocean, and behind it stood the Arabian Plate, which was still one with Africa. All this mass of boulders gradually approached the island arc.
35 million years ago, towards the end of the Eocene epoch (the second epoch of the Paleogene after the Paleocene), the Arabian ledge practically approached and touched the island arc. The bed of the Tethys ocean, its bottom, was swallowed up under an arc.
Starting from the Oligocene (occupies an interval of 34-23 million years ago), the collision of the Arabian ledge with the island arc began. The consequence of this was the pushing of fragments of the island arc to the north and the gradual contraction of the back-arc basin. Especially large was the reduction in distance directly opposite the Arabian salient, where movements reached 300-400 kilometers. The island volcanic arc curved to the north.
Oligocene, 34-23 million years ago. The beginning of the collision and crowding of blocks. The beginning of the rise of the Caucasus.
In the Oligocene, the Greater Caucasus was not yet a mountain structure. Both the Greater and Lesser Caucasus were islands and underwater heights. Their number and the area occupied by them increased.
Finally, the entire expanse of the former Greater Caucasus basin, capable of shrinking, has ended. There was no bark left to be absorbed. Squeezed between continental blocks between the edge of Eurasia and Afro-Arabia, the Caucasus zone has become the scene of a new stage of development (or another catastrophe, as often happens). Monstrous forces and energies once again transformed the collision area. Since the late Miocene (the Miocene is a period of time from 23 to 5.4 million years ago), the uplift has sharply increased. The Greater Caucasus began to rise. The sediments that had accumulated over many million years, lining and forming the seabed, began to turn into mountains. Apparently, at the end of the late Sarmatian age, 12 million years ago. mountainous terrain formed in the Caucasus. It is assumed that the relief then was a combination of low plains in internal depressions, denudation and abrasive-erosion plains and ridges and remnant massifs up to 700 meters high that towered over them for several hundred meters.
Fig.7 The end of the Miocene, 12 million years ago. Formation of the Caucasus Mountains.
The continuing pressure of Afro-Arabia led to the weakening of the earth's crust in the area in the direction of the "point" up to the present Pyatigorsk, and 7-9 million years ago magmatic diapirs of the mineral water group formed there (diapiric structures are folds curved upward due to magma pressure from below). Molten magma tried to make its way to the surface, swelling the sediments of the seas. But its viscosity was too high, the magma did not break through under the open sky, and the failed laccolith volcanoes now adorn Ciscaucasia.
In the late Miocene, 7-6 million years ago. the volcanism of the Lesser Caucasus sharply intensified. Extensive volcanic covers formed from lavas and products of explosive eruptions.
In the late Pliocene, by the time of 2 million years ago. the Elbrus volcano, the Verkhnechegemskaya caldera were formed, volcanoes arose in the Kazbek region.
Finally, in the Quaternary period (beginning 1.8 million years ago), the relief of the Caucasus sharply rejuvenated due to continued uplifts under conditions of compression between the lithospheric plates. In the Greater Caucasus, the uplift of the outer elements of the mountain structure, the former shelf with a crystalline base, and the tucking of the southern slope continued. In the Lesser Caucasus, there were simply uplifts of blocks along fault lines.
In the Quaternary period, the volcanism of the Lesser Caucasus existed only in some of its parts. But nearby, in the Armenian-Javakheti Highlands, the eruptions were very intense, forming the volcanoes Aragats and Ararat.
Thus, the main result of the Cenozoic events was the collision of lithospheric plates, the closing of the Tethys Ocean and the uplift of mountain structures in place of sea basins.
3. Traces of events. What do we see today?
Now, knowing and understanding the history of the formation of the Caucasus, let's go again from north to south over it and get acquainted with the traces of past processes. It will be a very superficial acquaintance.
The plains of Ciscaucasia are composed from the surface of Neogene and Quaternary deposits. Under them, and further down under the Mesozoic and Paleogene strata lies the uneven surface of the Scythian plate.
Due to pressure from Arabia, the structures of the Scythian Plate were partly uplifted, forming the Stavropol and Mineralnye Vody arches.
To the right and to the left of this zone are the advanced troughs of the basement of the plate - the Terek-Caspian and the West and East Kuban. Thanks to their lowering, for example, the floodplains of the Kuban and the salt lakes of the Kuma delta were formed (due to the filling of river beds with sediments).
Further south, the Northern slope of the Greater Caucasus begins directly.
The rocky ridge is composed (ridge and summit plateau) of Middle Jurassic and Lower Cretaceous limestones.
In the Labino-Malkinskaya zone, in the central part of the northern slope, the foundation of the slab already simply comes to the surface in the river valleys, bent by the monstrous pressure of the approaching continents. The southern end of the Labino-Malkinskaya zone is the Peredovoi Ridge, its central part.
The rising Dividing and Lateral Ranges in the Central Caucasus are already composed of solid crystalline rocks. The depression between them is composed of Early Jurassic shales.
In the Western Caucasus, the Dividing Range is composed of crystalline rocks. Lateral - sedimentary Paleozoic.
In the Eastern Caucasus, the ridges are composed mainly of Jurassic shales.
The southern slope of the Greater Caucasus is composed of Lower-Middle Jurassic shale strata. These are the same deep-water deposits of the Bolshekavkazsky basin, which were mentioned earlier.
To the south is the Transcaucasian massif. In its highest place, in the center, in the Dziruli ledge, ancient pre-Paleozoic rocks are close to the surface. This is the foundation of the northern part of the former volcanic arc.
Well, then there are the mountains of the Lesser Caucasus, composed of volcanogenic-sedimentary strata of the Cretaceous and Paleogene. The thicknesses were crumpled into folds, then broken into blocks and pushed up. This is the former volcanic arc, its southern part. The territory of the west and south of the Lesser Caucasus (Armenia, Adzharia, Trialetia) is composed of Paleogene and Cretaceous marine sediments with products of underwater and surface volcanic eruptions. The north and east of the Lesser Caucasus is composed of Jurassic marine rocks, also with eruptions.
In conclusion, it is interesting to look at the region from above. It is clearly seen how the Arabian Plate is being pressed into a hodgepodge of microblocks, putting pressure on the Lesser Caucasus and further through the Transcaucasus on the North Caucasus. How the chain of the Pontic Mountains (the northern coast of Turkey) - the Lesser Caucasus - Elburs (the ridge along the southern coast of the Caspian Sea) stretches, marking the closing line of the northern branch of the Tethys Ocean. To the south, the chain of the Taurus Mountains (southern Turkey) - Zagros (a ridge in southwestern Iran) marks the southern branch of the Tethys Ocean. And between them, these chains - Central Turkey and Iran, pushed aside by the ledge of the Arabian plate.
View of the region globally.
This is how the geological history of the Caucasus looks like. As in other places on the planet, each stone means something, each slope testifies to the processes of millions and billions of years ago. Both small stones and structures the size of half a continent can tell stories that intertwine and complement each other. To end up with a coherent history of the region in all its impressive dynamics. It is not easy to describe the life of the lithosphere. She does not know human emotions. And the witnesses of the events are also not people. And the scales of time do not fit into the usual size range. It is only by gathering together in the knowledge of scholars that events receive literary life. But the stones don't need us. It seems that we need them and are drawn to explore and describe them.
Steppe Pathfinder
References:
History of the Tethys Ocean. ed. A.S. Monin, L.P. Zonenshine. 1987. 156 p.
Paleogeography. A.A. Svitoch, O.G. Sorokhtin, S.A. Ushakov. 2004 448 p.
Geology of Russia and adjacent territories. N.V. Koronovsky. 2011 240 p.
Physical geography of the USSR. F.N. Milkov, N.A. Gvozdetsky. 1975. 448 p.
Poetry of the Caucasus Mountains. M.G. Leonov. Nature. 2003 No. 6.
Atlantis Sea Tethys Kondratov Alexander Mikhailovich
What is the Tethys Sea?
What is the Tethys Sea?
The Mediterranean basin became the cradle of European civilization. The history of the Mediterranean Sea, according to many scientists, can also become the "key" to the history of our planet, to the history of the origin of the continents and oceans. A lot of hypotheses trying to explain the geological evolution of the Earth have been put forward over the past centuries. In principle, they can be divided into two groups. The first combines hypotheses that explain the history of the Earth by vertical movements of the crust - the uplifting of mountains, the failures of oceanic depressions, the formation of continents in place of deep seas, or, conversely, the "oceanization" of the continental crust. The second group, in addition to these vertical movements of the crust, also suggests horizontal ones, caused by the drift of the continents, the expansion of the Earth, etc.
The most venerable age is the hypothesis according to which our planet was originally dressed in continental pores. The oceans arose at the site of the sinking of the ancient continents - the Atlantic where Atlantis used to be, the Pacific - on the site of the "Pacific Atlantis", or Pacifida, the Indian - on the site of Lemuria. The Mediterranean Sea, according to supporters of this hypothesis, is also generated by the failure of the earth's crust: the Aegean and Tyrrenida became the bottom of the sea, the Balearic Islands, Malta, and Cyprus are the fragments of the former land. In a word, the area of the Mediterranean Sea is the area of the underdeveloped ocean, which divided Europe and Africa, which previously constituted a single ancient continent.
Over a hundred years ago, the largest American geologist J. Dana put forward a diametrically opposite hypothesis: not the continents, but the oceans are the primary, initial formation. The entire planet was covered by an oceanic-type crust, which was formed even before the formation of the atmosphere. "An ocean is always an ocean," was Dan's thesis. Its modern formulation is: "The great oceanic basins are a permanent feature of the earth's surface, and they have existed where they are now, with slight changes in outline since the waters first arose." The evolution of the earth's crust is a steady increase in the area of the continents and a reduction in the area of the oceans. The Mediterranean Sea is the remnant of the ancient Tethys Ocean, which separated Europe and North Asia from Africa, Hindustan and Indochina tens of millions of years ago.
The sea - or ocean - Tethys is given a large place in the constructions of mobilists - supporters of the hypothesis of continental drift. At the end of the Paleozoic, about 200 million years ago, as the creator of this hypothesis suggested, the remarkable German scientist Alfred Wegener, a single land mass, Pangea, surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, split into two supercontinents: northern - Laurasia and southern - Gondwana. The “gap” between these supercontinents, steadily expanding, gave rise to the Tethys Sea, a kind of bay of a single pra-ocean or all-ocean (Pantalassa) that embraced the entire planet. Then the split of Laurasia and Gondwana into separate continents began, the movement of continental plates became more complicated. As Europe, North America, India, Africa, Australia, Antarctica "dispersed", the Atlantic, Indian, Arctic oceans were formed - and at the same time the area of the Tethys Sea was reduced. The majestic Alps of the Caucasus, the Pamirs, the Himalayan mountains, which were once the bottom of the Tethys, rose. And from the Tethys Sea itself, only the Mediterranean and the Black Sea associated with it remained.
Proponents of the continental drift hypothesis in its modern version believe that the Mediterranean Sea arose as a result of the "spreading" of the seabed (the so-called spreading) in a dynamic band between the continental plates of Europe and Africa. Scientists who believe that the main cause of continental drift is the expansion of the Earth, which began hundreds of millions of years ago - they also belong to the mobilists - believe that the Mediterranean Sea is also generated by this expansion.
What happened before the collapse of Pangea, surrounded by Panthalasse, began? This question has been asked by both supporters and opponents of the continental drift hypothesis. Does the history of the face of the Earth cover only some 200 million years, when, according to the mobilists, the Tethys Sea split the single land into Laurasia and Gondwana? The Soviet geologists L. P. Zonenshain and A. M. Gorodnitsky tried to draw, from the standpoint of mobilism, a picture of the changes that have taken place on our planet over the past half a billion years. In the Cambrian period, beginning the "ancient era of life" - the Paleozoic, a single supercontinent Gondwana, the European, Siberian, Chinese and North American paleocontinents were separated by paleooceans - the Paleoatlantic and Paleoasian. In the next period, the Ordovician, which began about 480 million years ago, the Siberian and Chinese paleocontinents moved, the southern part of the Paleo-Atlantic Ocean closed, but a new ocean formed - Paleotethys, which separated the northern continents from the eastern ones and from the Gondwana supercontinent, parts of which are present-day Africa, South America, Australia, India, Madagascar, Antarctica.
In the Devonian period, 390 million years ago, the northern part of the Paleo-Atlantic Ocean began to close, while the southern part, on the contrary, opened up and merged with Paleotethys. In the Carboniferous period, 340 million years ago, the convergence of the northern and eastern paleocontinents began, and in the Permian period, which ends the Paleozoic era, Laurasia and Gondwana almost completely unite into a single Pangea - it does not include only the Chinese continent, which forms a kind of island between two branches of Paleo-Tethys. In the next era, the Mesozoic, the disintegration of Laurasia and Gondwana takes place, and at the end of it, in the Cretaceous period, the western part of Tethys becomes the Mediterranean Sea, closed by the overhanging plates of Europe and Africa (if the predictions of mobilists are correct, then in 50 million years the Mediterranean Sea will disappear completely and Europe will be connected to North Africa).
Proponents of the continental drift hypothesis tried to paint a clearer picture of the history of the Mediterranean Basin, based on the fact that in addition to large continental plates, such as the European or African, smaller plates and microcontinents also came into motion. There are more than two dozen such microcontinents: Iranian, Turkish, Sinai, Rhodope, Apulian, Iberian, Sahelian, Calabrian, Balearic, Corsicano-Sardinian, Tatra, Lanzarote-Fuerteventura (future Canary Islands), etc. But, despite all the interesting reconstructions, to this day the history of the Mediterranean Sea remains a kind of natural testing ground, where the hypotheses of the primacy of the oceans and the primacy of the continents, the drift of the continents and the expanding Earth are tested, for each of them in its own way explains the origin of the inland sea lying between Europe, Africa and Asia.
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Many millions of years ago, waves of a huge Ocean Tethys, which stretched from the Isthmus of Panama through the Atlantic Ocean, the southern half of Europe, the Mediterranean region, flooding the northern shores of Africa, the Black and Caspian Seas, the territory now occupied by the Pamirs, the Tien Shan, the Himalayas, and further through India to the Pacific Islands. Tethys existed for most of the history of the globe (until the Neogene period). Numerous original and peculiar representatives of the organic world lived in its waters.
The globe at that time had only two huge continents: Laurasia, located on the site of modern North America, Greenland, Europe and Asia, and Gondwana, uniting South America, Africa, Hindustan and Australia. The Tethys Ocean separated these continents.
On the territory of the continents, mountain-building processes took place, erecting mountain ranges in Europe, in Asia (Himalayas), in the southern part of North America (Appalachians). The Urals and Altai appeared on the territory of our country.
Huge volcanic eruptions flooded the plains that were on the site of the modern Alps, Central Germany, England, and Central Asia with lava. Lava rose from the depths, melted through the rocks and solidified in huge masses. So, between the Yenisei and the Lena, Siberian traps were formed, which have a large capacity and occupy an area of more than 300,000 square meters. km.
The animal and plant world experienced great changes. Along the shores of the oceans, seas and lakes, inside the continents, giant plants inherited from the Carboniferous period grew - lepidodendrons, sigillaria, calamites. In the second half of the period, conifers appeared: Walhia, Ulmania, Voltsia, cicada palms. In their thickets lived armor-headed amphibians, huge reptiles - pareiasaurs, foreigners, tuatara. A descendant of the latter still lives in our time in New Zealand.
The population of the seas is characterized by an abundance of protozoan foraminifers (fusulin ischvagerin). Large bryozoan reefs grew in the shallow zone of the Permian seas. The seas, leaving, left vast shallow lagoons, at the bottom of which salt and gypsum settled, as in our modern Sivash. Huge areas of lakes covered the continents, just as they currently cover the Karelian-Finnish SSR. Sea basins abounded with stingrays and sharks, among which the outstanding scientist of the USSR A.P. Karpinsky found a very interesting helicoprion shark, which had a dental apparatus in the form of an silt with large teeth. Armored fish give way to ganoid, lungfish.
The climate had clearly defined zones. Glaciations, accompanied by a cold climate, occupied the poles, which then were located differently than in our time. The North Pole was in the North Pacific Ocean, and the South Pole was near the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. The belt of deserts occupied Central Europe; deserts lay between Moscow and Leningrad. The temperate climate was in Siberia.
More than half a century ago, Vogt, a teacher of natural history at the local gymnasium, lived in Simferopol. On Sundays, he went with a group of his students to the outskirts of the city, mainly up the Salgira River, to collect rocks and minerals.
One day they reached the village. Maryino and on the right bank of the Salgir came across “a block of dark gray dense limestone that had grown into the ground, which<сих пор еще не встречали. Глыба лежала отдельно, и других, аналогичных, пород вокруг не было. Находка озадачила Фохта. По аналогии с другими районами, главным образом Донбассом, где имелись такие известняки, Фохт определил их возраст как каменноугольный. Дальнейшие исследования показали, что такие глыбы встречаются и дальше, в направлении на юго-запад, причем, что особенно замечательно, они лежат почти по прямой линии. Самая большая глыба, метров 100 длиной и метров 80 высотой и шириной, лежала в верховьях Марты, притока реки Качи. Более мелкие глыбы были найдены между реками Бодрак и Алма.
In 1916, scientists became interested in blocks, in particular O. G. Tumanskaya. She then explored the blocks and discovered in them the richest fauna of fossil foraminiferal rhizopods, cephalopods and gastropods, crustaceans - trilobites, brachiopods and bryozoans. The composition of fossil organisms allowed her to determine the age of these blocks as Permian. Moreover, she found that these limestones were deposited during the entire Permian period, which lasted about 25 million years. She managed to establish that they are very similar to the Permian deposits of the Urals, the Iberian Peninsula, the island of Sicily, the Balkan Peninsula, Asia Minor, the Caucasus, the Pamirs, Indo-China and the southern regions of North America and that they were deposited in a shallow sea.
At the same time, all researchers, from Vogt to modern scientists, were surprised that these blocks occur among young Triassic deposits, which were formed much later than the Permian period. They, as if by the hand of some giant, were extracted from the ground and, after several million years, were dumped into younger sediments, where they were preserved. How could this happen? This interesting question is solved in different ways.
Some scientists believe that the Permian blocks lie in place, i.e., where the Permian sea was, that in the subsequent, Triassic period, they emerged from the sea as islands - skerries, as now, for example, rocks-ships emerge against Mount Opuk near the southern coast of the Kerch Peninsula, and that sediments of the Triassic time were deposited around them. Others argue that these blocks do not lie in place, that they were brought here by mountain building processes or rolled down from the southern coast, which ran parallel to the location of the blocks, i.e., had a northeast strike. Some supporters of this assumption believe that the blocks rolled down from the northern coast of the mainland, which was on the site of the modern Black Sea, that is, from the south. coal deposits, which show that at that time the land lay to the north of the coast of Turkey, towards the Crimean peninsula.This continent was preserved in the Permian time.
We believe that those scientists who consider them to be in the place where they were formed in the Permian are right. These were rock islands (skerries) in the Triassic Sea.
The Permian period completes the vast Paleozoic era of the life of the Earth, which lasted more than three hundred million years, modest traces of which are found in the Crimea.
