A Tectonic Model of the Transform Fault of the Verkhoyansk–Chukotka Mesozoids

Abstract

In this work we considered the origin of the Verkhoyansk–Kolyma, Chukotka, and Southern Anyui belts, which are part of the Verkhoyansk–Chukotka folded area. It was shown that the formation of the belts is not associated with a collision impulse of the Siberian and Arctic plates. The first belt was crumpled into the giant horizontal fold (Kolyma loop) due to drift of the Omolon massif along the border of the Siberian craton. The Chukotka belt, which cuts the Kolyma loop, is attributed to the lateral zone of the Arctic tectonic flow in the Eastern Hemisphere of the Earth’s polar area. The Arctic flow shares a border with cut structures of the Verkhoyansk–Kolyma orocline (Kolyma loop) along the Southern Anyui–Pekulnei–Koyukuk transform fault. These structural schemes restrict the schemes of the opening of the Amerasian and Eurasian paleooceanic basins remaining a sublatitudinal vector of spreading of the oceanic lithosphere as the only possible option.