Tectonic regime of the area of the Sukhoi Log geological practice in the Middle Devonian and volcanic arcs in the basement of Western Siberia

The article briefly describes current understanding of the tectonic regime of study area. It is related to the field geological practice of students of Industrial University of Tyumen. Study area is located at the western edge of Sukhoi Log town, Sverdlovsk region. The relevance of the work is related to the educational process. Information about the geological structure of the Devonian and Carboniferous formations of study area is collected. Some of the most characteristic outcrops of Paleozoic are described. Actual information about the Ural mountain genesis is given. The list of studied objects includes the outcrop of Eifelian reefal limestones near to the Shata waterfall and the ruins of a volcano. According to other researchers, it is a part of Middle Devonian volcanic arc, which was formed over the subduction zone. Here the Ordovician-Silurian Paleouralian Ocean were subducted under the collage of different-age terrains and paleocontinents (Paleozoic basement of the modern West Siberian Plate). A possible section across the Middle Devonian subduction zone of study area is presented. Similar objects associated with the oil and gas are known in the Pre-Jurassic basement of Western Siberia. The limestones and volcanic massifs exposed near the Sukhoi Log are good natural equivalents of the objects of oil and gas exploration in Western Siberia.

Features of earthquake epicenters and mineral deposits spatial relationship in the Urals

Introduction. Recent Ural mountain belt is an N-S Paleozoic orogen rejuvenated in the NeogeneQuaternary period. It separates the East European plate located to the west of it and the West Siberian plate located to the east of it. The Uralian orogeny presumably occurred at the Paleozoic time as a result 36 "Izvestiya vysshikh uchebnykh zavedenii. Gornyi zhurnal". No. 4. 2021 ISSN 0536-1028 of these plates interaction, which affected the geologic structure of the region. In the modern era, low tectonic activity in the bowels of the Urals continues supported by rare tangible earthquakes with a magnitude from 2.0–3.0 to 5.0–5.5, 3.0 – 3.5 on the average, and the intensity in the epicenter from 3.0–4.0 to 5.0–6.0 on MSK-64 scale. Research aim is to analyze the spatial relationship of sensible earthquakes epicenters and mineral deposits in the Urals. Research methodology included estimating the position of Ural earthquakes epicenters and mineral deposits relative to the geologic and tectonic structures of Paleozoic time, recent epoch, and the modern era. Research results. Most earthquake epicenters in the Urals are concentrated within the western part of the Uralian Orogeny to the west of the Main Uralian Fault (MUF), while most mineral deposits, especially ore deposits, are concentrated within the eastern part of the Uralian orogeny to the east of MUF. In the axial zone of MUF, earthquake epicenters are close and sometimes coincide. Consequently, the processes of ore deposits and earthquake foci formation are of a similar nature

URAL MOUNTAIN-PLAIN COUNTRY AS A KEY MEGA-REGION OF EURASIA FOR THE CONTINUOUS NATURAL RESERVES NETWORK DEVELOPMENT

The paper is considered the landscape-ecological formation of a continuous network of specially protected natural areas (SPNA) within the Ural mountain-plain physical-geographical country as a transcontinental mega-region of Eurasia. A principally new scheme of the Ural physical-geographical demarcation was a matrix to develop a representative network of protected territories. This scheme was developed, taking into account Ural orographic subdivision, latitudinal zonality, and peculiarities of landscapes altitudinal zonality. The SPNA existing network of the mega-region was analyzed; the prospective key landscape territories were defined as a reserve fund to form reservations.

Стоянка среднего палеолита в пещере Иманай-1 на Южном Урале: предварительные итоги археологических исследований

Introduction. Imanai-1 Cave is a new monument of the Middle Paleolithic in the Southern Urals. It was discovered by the authors in 2009 and is located in the west of the Ural mountain system, in the interfluve of the Belaya and Nugush Rivers, on the border of the mountain-forest and steppe zones. Goals. The paper aims to introduce preliminary results of archaeological investigations into scientific discourse. Results. The cave is of a tunnel type, its 70 m long passage ending with a far hall which contained bones of a small cave bear and a cave lion. The monument is multi-layered. The first cultural horizon contained 399 items of stone and bone. Tools make up to 60 % of all stone products, while cores and scales are absent, therefore, primary and secondary processing was carried out outside the far hall. The stone industry is characterized by the use of shards and amorphous flint chips. The working areas were made out with monofacial and bifacial retouching, incisal cleavage. The tools are of the following types: 3 Mousterian bifacial points, 4 convergent side-scrapers with bifacial processing, butt knives, some with bifacial processing ― 6 items, carvers on fragments and amorphous chips ― 229 items (59 %), points ― 19 items (5 %), tools with a thorn ― 13 items (3 %), incisors ― 21 items (5 %). At the base of the first cultural horizon, a skull of a small cave bear with an artificial hole made with a stone spearhead was found. The industry of the site has numerous analogies at the Ilskaya-1 site in the North Caucasus and in the materials of the upper layer of the Kiik-Koba grotto in the Crimea, as well as at other sites of the Middle Paleolithic of the Tayacian tradition. Three uncalibrated dates show the interval from 26 to 42 thousand years. This indicates the finale of the Mousterian era.

Genetic polymorphism in Siberian stone pine (Pinus sibirica Du Tour) populations from Ural and Altai-Sayan mountains

The article presents the results of analysis of the variability of 23 allozyme loci in 10 populations of Siberian Stone pine. Populations from South Siberia mountain regions had higher percentage of polymorphic loci in averageand mean number of alleles per loci (P99% = 44,57 %, NA = 1,543 ± 0,014) compared to Ural populations (P99%=29,57%,NA = 1,348 ± 0,015). The average values of the observed and expected heterozygosity in the populations of the Altai-Sayan (HO = 0,087 ±0,007 and HE = 0,090 ± 0,004) and the Ural mountain region (HO = 0,083 ± 0,008 и HE = 0,082 ± 0,005)were close. About 8.4% of the total genetic diversity is due to differences between the studied populations. The results ofmultidimensional data analysis confirm the existence of the Altai-Sayan and Ural refugia in the post-glacial period andthe dispersal of Siberian stone pine to the North from the Ural glacier refugium.

Pre-Signal and Influencing Sources of the Extreme Cold Surges at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Competition Zones

The 24th Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games will take place in Beijing in 2022. All three competition zones are vulnerable to extreme cold surges (ECSs), owing to the occurrence of the East Asian winter monsoon. In this paper, a representative competition domain (37.5–42.5° N, 110–120° E) is adopted, with a view to avoiding the differences in both the geographies and the thresholds of ECSs among different zones by considering the probability of simultaneous occurrences. Since 2009, the ECSs in the domain have displayed higher frequency and extremity. Based on all ECS cases in the domain, the dominant circulation is revealed by a quasi “reverse-Ω” pattern, with two strong ridges over the east of the Ural Mountain and the Okhotsk Sea, and a broad, deep trough in East Asia. The influencing sources of the ECSs at the domain could be traced to the Novaya Zemlya by a day-by-day backward analysis. The oblique latitude/longitude–time profiles of both the 500 hPa geopotential height and the 850 hPa air temperature anomalies from the source to the domain clearly indicate that the pre-signal could have a leading influence that exceeds ten days, with a slow accumulation in the first stage and a rapid outburst in the second stage.

Influence of Pacific Decadal Oscillation on global precipitation extremes on decadal time scales

<p>On the decadal time scales, while the influence of Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) on total or average precipitation had been extensively studied, works about its influence on precipitation extremes were limited, especially lack of a global picture.  Using two independent methods, nonstationary generalized extreme value (GEV) model which directly incorporates PDO index into its location parameter and moving GEV model which fits the annual extremes with a sliding window of 30 years and regresses the resulted changing location parameter onto the PDO index, we show that precipitation extremes over a large portion of stations are significantly affected by the PDO with stations in the Pacific Rim demonstrating distinct regional patterns. Over eastern China, the famous ‘southern flood and norther drought’ pattern corresponding to a positive PDO phase extends to extreme rainfalls; over Australia, a tri-polar pattern was revealed, in which the extremes over central Australia positively correlate with the PDO index and those over eastern and western Australia show a negative correlation; and the North America also demonstrates a dipole pattern, by which the northwest (southeast) experiences less (more) intense extreme rainfall in a PDO positive phase. Moreover, the western Europe and the large area between the Ural mountain and eastern Europe were discovered to hold a positive correlation with the PDO in their precipitation extremes. A comparative analysis to the local circulation controlling the precipitation extremes under different PDO phases further confirms the discovered relationships above. These findings have important implication for the future projection of extreme precipitation over related regions because the internal climate variability should be appropriately accounted for beyond the effects induced by global warming.</p>

Process understanding of a linkage between East-Asian cold-surge wiith the unprecedented Arctic warming event in early 2016

<p>At the end of December 2015, Storm Frank, a major Atlantic windstorm, intruded into the Arctic-circle along with warm air and a large amount of moisture, resulting in an unprecedented Arctic high-temperature phenomenon. In late January 2016, the Eurasian continent suffered a series of strong cold events. This study performed a synoptic analysis of a daily Northern Hemisphere SLP and 500hPa, 300hPa height anomaly using JRA-reanalysis data focusing on the process understanding of the sequential development and strengthening of Siberian high in association with the generation of the Ural blocking after the Arctic warming event. From synoptic analysis , we found that, within one month period, there exist several spells of Ural blocking occurrence instead of steady occupation of persistent high pressure over Ural Mountain region. The heat intrusion from midlatitude in association with Storm Frank caused a large wave breaking event over Atlantic sector of Arctic and initiated Ural blocking. The unprecedented warm temperature in early 10 days of January 2016 caused a large sea-ice loss and further heat injection from Barents/Kara seas helping anchoring the blocking over Ural Mountain region. In January 2016, several cold events over Eurasian continent well matched with the several spell of Ural blocking events. We suggest that daily scale interactions among warm advection, downward longwave radiation, sea-ice loss, and blocking occurrence need to be carefully considered to understand true nature of Arctic-Midlatitude linkage issue.</p>

Gradually increasing forest fire activity during the Holocene in the northern Ural region (Komi Republic, Russia)

In many boreal regions of Russia the past natural variability of forest fire activity remains largely undocumented, preventing accurate assessment of the impact of current climate warming on forest ecosystem dynamics. This study aims to reconstruct the Holocene fire history of the northern Ural mountain foothills, in the Komi Republic, based on analyses of charcoal particles from peatland deposits and coupled with dendrochronological investigations. The results show that there was a gradual increase in forest fire activity during the past 11,000 years. Between 11,000 and 5100 cal. yr BP, the mean fire return interval (FRI) oscillated between 600 and 200 years. During this period, regional data showed that cold temperature, humid climatic conditions, combined with steppe vegetation between 11,000–9000 cal. BP, and then the development of spruce-dominated forest between 9300 and 4600 cal. yr BP, were less conducive to fires. After 5100 cal. yr BP, a gradual increase in drought conditions through reduced precipitations, associated with the establishment of a Scots pine forest favored fire frequency, with a mean FRI under 200 years (range, 200–40 years). Nowadays (since CE 1500), human activity induces an unprecedented fire activity with a mean FRI below 100 years (range, 100–40 years).