Volcanogenic belts of the marginal sea lithosphere in the Russian Northeast and their ore potential

Abstract

According to the concepts of accretionary tectonics, the region of interest was a dynamically evolving active continental margin during Mesozoic/Cenozoic time; this is reflected in the generation of nine volcano-plutonic belts that successively evolved from northwest to southeast. Most of these evolved in parallel with the present-day location of the Kuril-Kamchatka deep-sea trench: the Late Jurassic/Early Cretaceous Uda-Murgali belt (UMVB) the Uyandina-Yasachnaya (UYVB), the Oloi belt (OVB), the Late Cretaceous/Paleogene Okhotsk-Chukchi belt (OChVB), the Late Cretaceous/Paleogene East-Sikhote-Alin’ belt (ESVB), the Eocene/Oligocene Koryak-West-Kamchatka belt (KWKVB), the Oligocene/Quaternary Central Kamchatka belt (CKVB), and the Pliocene/Quaternary East Kamchatka belt (EKVB). The successively younger age of the volcanic belts since the Early Cretaceous is in correspondence with the displacement of the volcanic arc-trench system toward the Pacific Ocean. Apart from the above-mentioned volcanogenic belts, the Omolon craton terrane also contains the pre-accretionary Devonian Kedon marginal volcanogenic belt (KVB). All the volcanogenic belts and the surrounding perivolcanic zones of tectono-magmatic activation (TMA) form the world-largest metallogenic province with a polychronous volcanogenic-plutonogenic metallization of various compositions.