Earth-Science Reviews 82 (2007) 29–74 www.elsevier.com/locate/earscirev Siberia, the wandering northern terrane, and its changing geography through the Palaeozoic ⁎ L. Robin M. Cocks a, , Trond H. Torsvik b,c,d a Department of Palaeontology, The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK b Center for Geodynamics, Geological Survey of Norway, Leiv Eirikssons vei 39, Trondheim, N-7401, Norway c Institute for Petroleum Technology and Applied Geophysics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, N-7491 NTNU, Norway d School of Geosciences, Private Bag 3, University of the Witwatersrand, WITS, 2050, South Africa Received 27 March 2006; accepted 5 February 2007 Available online 15 February 2007 Abstract The old terrane of Siberia occupied a very substantial area in the centre of today's political Siberia and also adjacent areas of Mongolia, eastern Kazakhstan, and northwestern China. Siberia's location within the Early Neoproterozoic Rodinia Superterrane is contentious (since few if any reliable palaeomagnetic data exist between about 1.0 Ga and 540 Ma), but Siberia probably became independent during the breakup of Rodinia soon after 800 Ma and continued to be so until very near the end of the Palaeozoic, when it became an integral part of the Pangea Supercontinent. The boundaries of the cratonic core of the Siberian Terrane (including the Patom area) are briefly described, together with summaries of some of the geologically complex surrounding areas, and it is concluded that all of the Palaeozoic underlying the West Siberian Basin (including the Ob–Saisan Surgut area), Tomsk Terrane, Altai–Sayan Terranes (including Salair, Kuznetsk Alatau, Batenov, Kobdin and West Sayan), Ertix Terrane, Barguzin Terrane, Tuva–Mongol Terrane, Central Mongolia Terrane Assemblage, Gobi Altai and Mandalovoo Terranes, Okhotsk Terrane and much of the Verkhoyansk–Kolyma region all formed parts of peri-Siberia, and thus rotated with the main Siberian Craton as those areas were progressively accreted to the main Siberian Terrane at various times during the latest Neoproterozoic and Palaeozoic. The Ertix Terrane is a new term combining what has been termed the “Altay Terrane” or “NE Xinjiang” area of China, and the Baytag, Baaran and Bidz terranes of Mongolia. The Silurian Tuvaella brachiopod fauna is restricted only to today's southern parts of peri-Siberia. Thus, allowing for subsequent rotation, the fauna occurs only in the N of the Siberian Terrane, and, as well as being a helpful indicator of what marginal terranes made up peri-Siberia, is distinctive as being the only Silurian fauna known from northern higher latitudes globally. In contrast, the other terranes adjacent to peri-Siberia, the North China Terrane, the Manchurides terranes (including the Khingan–Bureya Massif area), the Gurvanshayan Terrane, the Ala Shan Terrane, the Qaidam– Qilian Terrane, the Tarim Terrane, the Junggar Terrane, the Tien Shan terranes and the various Kazakh terranes, did not become part of the Siberian Terrane assemblage until they accreted to it in the Upper Palaeozoic or later during the formation of Pangea. The Farewell Terrane of Alaska includes typical Lower and Middle Palaeozoic Siberian endemic faunas, but its Palaeozoic position is unknown. Cambrian to Early Silurian palaeomagnetic poles from the southern and northern parts of the Siberian Craton differ, but can be matched with an Euler pole of 60°N, 120°E and a rotation angle of 13°. We link this observation with Devonian rifting in the Viljuy Basin near the centre of the craton and also postulate that this rifting rejuvenated an older Precambrian rift zone, since 1–1.1 Ga poles from southern and northern Siberia differ as much as 23° around the same Euler pole. A revised Palaeozoic apparent polar wander (APW) path is presented for the Siberian Craton in which pre-Devonian poles are corrected for Viljuy Basin rifting. There ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (L.R.M. Cocks). 0012-8252/$ - see front matter © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2007.02.001 30 L.R.M. Cocks, T.H. Torsvik / Earth-Science Reviews 82 (2007) 29–74 is also much Late Devonian tectonic activity in the Altai–Sayan area, which may be linked. The APW path implies that Siberia was located at low southerly latitudes at the dawn of the Palaeozoic and slowly drifted northward (b4 cm/yr.). A velocity burst is noted near the Ordovician–Silurian boundary (ca. 13 cm/yr between 450 and 440 Ma), whilst the Mid-Silurian and younger history is characterized by steady clockwise rotation (totalling about 75°) until the Late Permian. The Late Palaeozoic convergence history between Siberia and Baltica (Pangea) is hard to quantify from palaeomagnetic data because there are only two reliable poles (at 360 and 275 Ma) between the Early Silurian and the Permo-Triassic boundary. The Mid and Late Palaeozoic APW path for Siberia is therefore strongly interpolated and we discuss two different APW path alternatives that result in two very different convergence scenarios between Siberia and Baltica/Kazakh terranes. There are a newly-constructed succession of palaeogeographic maps of Siberia and its nearby areas at various times from the Cambrian to the Permian as, firstly, the peri-Siberian terranes and, secondly, the remainder of the Central Asian terranes accreted to it. Prior to the Early Ordovician, Siberia was in the southern hemisphere, but after that it drifted northwards and for most of the Phanerozoic it has been one of the few larger terranes in the northern hemisphere. The Cambrian and Ordovician maps are provisional for the Altai–Sayan and Mongolian areas, whose geology is highly complex and whose detailed palaeogeography is unresolved. The terms “Altaids” and “Paleo-Asian Ocean” have been used in so many different ways by so many different authors over so many geological periods that we reject their use. Wider issues considered include the possible links between the Cambrian Radiation (often wrongly termed “Explosion”), when metazoan animals first gained hard parts, and True Polar Wander (TPW). New Early Cambrian palaeomagnetic data from Siberia do not show rapid APW (b10 cm/yr.) or dramatic velocity changes (b4 cm/yr). It is concluded that the Cambrian Radiation occurred over a period approaching 20 Myr, and that rapid and large-scale TPW did not take place in the Cambrian. In addition, there are no traces of glaciogenic deposits in the very large area of Siberia during the Neoproterozoic, casting some doubt on the “Snowball Earth” hypothesis. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Siberia; Altai–Sayan; Mongolia; Palaeozoic; palaeogeography; palaeomagnetism; True Polar Wander; benthic faunas; Cambrian radiation 1. Introduction The core area of the Siberian Terrane, which has been termed the Angara Terrane by some workers, consists The name Siberia has two separate concepts and largely of a Precambrian craton and it includes the definitions: firstly, the geographical and political area of separately outcropping Archaean and Early Proterozoic present-day Russia that stretches from the Ural Moun- cores of the Anabar Massif and the Aldan Shield. These tains eastwards to the Pacific Ocean; and, secondly, the may have subsequently formed integral parts of the independent geological terrane which existed from the superterrane of Rodinia at about a billion years ago, but Proterozoic until the Late Palaeozoic. It is the latter that the location, configuration and even identity of Rodinia we mean throughout the substance of this paper, and remains contentious. That superterrane broke up in thus Siberia includes not only a large area within the stages from about 800 Ma, and by probably as early as modern Russian state but also extends into Mongolia 750 Ma Siberia had become an independent terrane. It and the northwestern part of China (Figs. 1 and 2). The remained a relatively stable craton, with undeformed Siberian Terrane does not include the NE part of modern Neoproterozoic (Riphean and Vendian) and Palaeozoic political Siberia, the Chukhot Terrane, which was sediments upon it, whose individual extents depended connected to Laurentia in the Palaeozoic and forms an upon the extent of flooding onto the craton at the integral part of the North American Plate today. Nor different times, until the assembly of Pangea during the does it include the W and SW parts of modern political Permian. Siberia, which to the N consists of the West Siberian One of the primary purposes of this paper is to examine Basin, whose Mesozoic to Recent deposits mask the what parts of central and northern Asia made up the division between the peri-Baltica island arcs and other Siberian Terrane; in other words, what parts of Russia, microterranes to its E and the western margin of peri- Mongolia, Kazakhstan and China now adjacent to the Siberia; and which to the S includes the northern Siberian Craton were or were not integral parts of the elements of the many terranes known as the Kazakh amalgamated Siberian superterrane terrane, and at what Terrane Assemblage. The latter occupies not only the time? Our other objectives are to chart the movements of majority of the area of Kazakhstan itself, but is also Siberia progressively through its existence as an inde- situated in many countries neighbouring it. pendent terrane, to present new palaeogeographical maps L.R.M. Cocks, T.H. Torsvik / Earth-Science Reviews 82 (2007) 29 – 74 Fig. 1. Satellite bathymetry-topography map orthogonal projection on northern Eurasia (Smith and Sandwell, 1997), superimposed on which are the margins of the Siberia Craton and within which is shown the simplified outline geology. The small coloured circles indicate the sampling locations and ages of all published palaeomagnetic data from the Siberia Craton and the Taimyr region, with their colours differentiated by geological time. 31 32 L.R.M. Cocks, T.H.