CHANGE IN THE GLOBAL DENUDATION BASE IN THE LATE MESOZOIC AND CENOZOIC AND ITS INFLUENCE ON THE FORMATION OF GEOMORPHOLOGICAL STRUCTURE IN AREAS WITH VARIOUS NEOTECTONIC REGIMES

The data on regional geology, stratigraphy and geomorphology accumulated by now permit one to compile a reliable and fairly complete model of changes in the World Ocean level in the interval from the Cretaceous period to the present. Global changes in the level of the World Ocean are primarily associated with slow and prolonged (107–108 y.) manifestations of plate tectonics (spreading of the ocean floor and decrease in the area of continents against the background of the formation of mountain relief due to collision processes at their borders) and faster, but short-term (103–106 y.) processes associated with the withdrawal of large amounts of water during the formation of large continental ice sheets and its return to the World Ocean during interglacial periods. The impact of the tectonic factor throughout the entire period under review was unidirectional, but uneven and led to intermittent decrease in the World Ocean level from 250–300 m above the present level to the current level, taken as 0 m. Prolonged periods of stable position of the World Ocean level in the second half of the Cretaceous, Paleogene and Early Neogene at 300, 250, 200 and 150 m led to the formation of regional peneplanation planes near these levels. Moreover, younger surfaces have never completely cut off the previous, higher level, leaving its relics in the form of table elevations on the surface of the younger peneplain. In tectonically passive areas, the hypsometric position of these geomorphological elements and associated sediments has stratigraphic significance, allowing the researchers to estimate their age, and in the case of their displacement, to evaluate the age and amplitudes of neotectonic movements.