Tectonolinament framework of the Black Sea region and the surrounding areas

Abstract

Modern high-precision global digital 3-d models of the relief of the continents and the ocean floor (SRTM, GEBCO) are the objective basis to clarify the structure and features of the organization of the planetary fault network of of the Black Sea region and adjacent areas of the Mediterranean mobile belt and surrounding platform areas, to find out the location of the main transregional supermegalineaments forming the deep structural-tectonic framework of the territory. A complete consistency of the structural plan of faults and fault zones within the sea areas and continental surroundings is established. The structural position of the Black Sea basin as a whole is determined by its location at the intersection area (superposition, interference) of the diagonal (subdiagonal) transcontinental tectonolinament belts: the north-west – Elba-Zagros, Caucasus-Kopetdag, and the north-east – Atlas- Black Sea. The absence of large-scale lateral displacements at the intersection nodes of differently oriented supermegalineament systems indicates the relative autonomous stationarity and inheritance of the formation of the lyneament framework during the entire Mezozoic-Cenozoic and relatively low-shear nature of its implementation. This feature of the Black Sea region structural pattern significantly limits the possibility of using neomobilistic geodynamic models to explain the history of the geological development of the region. The strict consistency and orderliness of the lineament framework can be ensured only by global planetary factors associated with the influence of the rotational regime of the Earth's shells on the stress distribution in the lithosphere.